{"id":920303,"date":"2026-10-08T06:14:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T06:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920303\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T06:14:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T06:14:18","slug":"novo-goes-on-deal-spree-amid-semaglutide-patent-expiries-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920303\/","title":{"rendered":"Novo goes on deal spree amid semaglutide patent expiries | Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Danish pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk has struck several deals, potentially worth over \u00a34 billion in total, to secure rights to new weight-loss and cardiometabolic disease treatments. Novo\u2019s deal spree is likely an attempt to curb anticipated revenue loss as the patent on semaglutide \u2013 the active ingredient in Novo\u2019s Wegovy and Ozempic, marketed for weight loss and diabetes respectively \u2013 has expired in several countries<\/a> and is set to expire in Europe and the US over the next few years.<\/p>\n

In the first of the deals, Novo has licensed a once-weekly oral GLP-1 drug<\/a>, which is ready to start phase 1 trials, from China\u2019s Hengrui Pharma for up to $2.6 billion (\u00a32.0 billion). The deal will allow Novo to develop and manufacture the drug globally, except in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.<\/p>\n

\"Novo<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Nanexa has agreed a deal worth up to \u20ac1.2 billion (\u00a31.0 billion)<\/a>, to combine its long-acting injectable drug delivery technology with Novo\u2019s weight-loss and type 2 diabetes drugs, potentially allowing monthly rather than weekly injections. Novo also struck a partnership deal worth up to\u00a0<\/a>$1.4 billion<\/a> in September with Orbis Medicines to develop oral therapies for a range of cardiometabolic diseases.<\/p>\n

\u2018Novo has pioneered the field of oral peptides,\u2019 says Martin Holst Lange<\/a>, Novo\u2019s chief scientific officer. He added that the company is \u2018continuously looking to advance our broad and deep oral pipeline across obesity, diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseases\u2019.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Novo generated more than 90% of its sales<\/a> from diabetes and obesity treatments, totalling DKK290 billion (\u00a333 billion). Yet, the company has already lost patent protection against semaglutide in India, Brazil and Canada. Patents for the drug in the key markets of Europe and the US are expected to expire in the 2030s.<\/p>\n

In parallel, Novo has begun a restructuring programme, cutting thousands of jobs<\/a> in an attempt to save around \u00a31 billion in annual costs.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Novo shareholders told the Financial Times<\/a> that the company must now grow its portfolio by developing new medicines and acquiring existing drugs. Julia Angeles<\/a>, investment manager at Baillie Gifford, told the FT that she \u2018would like to see Novo put their tentacles in as many novel approaches as possible\u2019, which would allow the company to explore treatments before committing to them.<\/p>\n

Novo attempted to buy a pipeline<\/a> of next-generation metabolic hormone weight loss drugs from US biotech Metsera last year. However, Metsera decided instead to accept a revised offer from Pfizer worth over $7 billion, as Novo\u2019s deal of the same value involved more risk.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson from Novo told Chemistry World that its \u2018recent deals are in line with our long-term [business development] strategy\u2019. However, the company said that it is not providing any more specific comments on what that means for individual deals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Danish pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk has struck several deals, potentially worth over \u00a34 billion in total, to secure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[64,63,137,490],"class_list":["post-920303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}