Novo Nordisk and Vivtex have entered a partnership focused on developing next-generation oral biologic therapies to treat obesity, diabetes and related comorbidities.

Vivtex will license to Novo Nordisk select oral drug-delivery technologies and is set to receive research funding, upfront payments, and milestone payments up to $2.1bn, along with tiered royalties on future product sales.

The partnership aims to enable oral administration of biologic drug candidates that are traditionally injected due to poor absorption in the gastrointestinal tract.

It aims to identify next-generation oral therapeutics by bringing together Novo Nordisk’s experience in peptide and protein therapeutics with Vivtex’s gastrointestinal screening and formulation platform.

Novo Nordisk's therapeutics discovery senior vice-president Brian Vandahl said: “Novo Nordisk has been at the forefront of innovation in protein and peptide engineering for several decades, and not least within oral formulation of peptides. We launched the first-ever oral biologic more than five years ago and have recently launched the world’s first oral biologic for obesity.

“We continue to push the boundaries of science through both internal and external innovation to fulfil our mission of treating millions more people living with obesity and diabetes and their associated comorbidities.”

Vivtex CEO and co-founder Thomas von Erlach said: “Making biologics oral has been one of the most difficult challenges in drug delivery. Vivtex was founded to systematically solve this problem by integrating high-throughput experimentation with computational and AI-enabled analytics.

“Partnering with Novo Nordisk allows us to apply our platform across important metabolic disease areas, with the goal of enabling oral therapies that would otherwise require injection.”

Vivtex’s platform integrates drug-delivery technologies, gastrointestinal screening assays, AI tools, and computational simulation to optimise oral delivery of biologic medicines.

The system is designed for high oral bioavailability and consistent performance in humans.

After research and formulation selection phases, Novo Nordisk will oversee global development, regulatory activities, manufacturing, and commercialisation of any successful products.

Last month, the company initiated a new phase in its ongoing partnership with Aspect Biosystems, which focuses on curative cellular medicines to treat diabetes.