No­vo’s broad Flag­ship part­ner­ship starts with obe­si­ty at Omega and MASH at Cel­lar­i­ty

No­vo Nordisk and Flag­ship Pi­o­neer­ing un­veiled the first two re­search tie-ups in­volved in their sprawl­ing car­diometa­bol­ic part­ner­ship on Thurs­day morn­ing.

The pair is em­ploy­ing Omega Ther­a­peu­tics to work on an mR­NA ther­a­peu­tic for obe­si­ty and Cel­lar­i­ty to work on a small mol­e­cule for meta­bol­ic dys­func­tion-as­so­ci­at­ed steato­hep­ati­tis. Both com­pa­nies were found­ed by the life sci­ences in­cu­ba­tor.

No­vo will pay Omega and Flag­ship’s Pi­o­neer­ing Med­i­cines up to $532 mil­lion across up­front pay­ments and biobucks, plus tiered roy­al­ties. The same struc­ture ap­plies to Cel­lar­i­ty and Pi­o­neer­ing Med­i­cines, the com­pa­nies said. No­vo will al­so re­im­burse R&D costs as the part­ners work to­geth­er on pre­clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. The drug gi­ant, flush with cash from its semaglu­tide fran­chise, can then choose to han­dle clin­i­cal stud­ies, which are years away, and fur­ther de­vel­op­ment.

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