Vect-Horus, a privately held biotechnology company that designs and develops vectors that facilitate the targeted delivery of therapeutic molecules and imaging agents, announced it has entered into a global license agreement with Novo Nordisk A/S. This agreement provides Novo Nordisk with worldwide, exclusive license to use Vect-Horus platform technology ”VECTrans”; for delivery of cargos directed against specified targets . Novo Nordisk has an option to add additional targets to the license.
Under the terms of the agreement, Vect-Horus will receive an upfront payment and up to $327 million in additional potential development, regulatory and commercial milestones across 3 programs. In addition, Vect-Horus is eligible to receive tiered royalties on product sales.
“We are extremely pleased to partner with Novo Nordisk, a leading global healthcare company. This is an important collaboration for Vect-Horus that underscores the potential of our approach to facilitate the targeting of molecules to different organs”, said Alexandre Tokay, co-founder and CEO of Vect-Horus. “This agreement is another important step in our strategy to establish commercial partnerships and to secure significant short-term cash to implement our technology and development programs. We look forward to collaborating with Novo Nordisk to unlock the potential of our technology platform and develop more efficient treatments”.
“Ability to accurately target delivery of therapeutics is critical to our ambition to address unmet needs within serious chronic diseases,” said Brian Vandahl, Senior Vice President of Global Research Technologies at Novo Nordisk. “We are thrilled to work with Vect-Horus by leveraging their platform to discover optimal delivery for specified targets. It is an exemplary opportunity for us to utilize external collaboration to further fuel our own innovation processes, with a common goal of improving health outcomes.”