Novo Nordisk, JDRF team on Type 1 diabetes drug development

NEW YORK — Novo Nordisk and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation on Wednesday announced the creation of a joint research and development team to discover and develop novel immunotherapies to prevent, treat and help cure Type 1 diabetes.

"JDRF is deeply committed to developing immunotherapies, and especially auto antigen-specific immunotherapies, for the prevention and cure of Type 1 diabetes," stated Richard Insel, JDRF's chief scientific officer. "This collaboration with Novo Nordisk affords an exciting opportunity to accelerate the time frame when these therapies may prove to make an impact in Type 1 diabetes."

The collaboration with Novo Nordisk will be run out of the company's newly opened Type 1 Diabetes Research and Development Center in Seattle. The center's goal is to use translational research methods to rapidly move early-stage discovery projects in immunotherapy from animal models into small clinical exploratory trials.

"It is not a coincidence that we are opening our new Type 1 Diabetes Research and Development Center in Seattle at that same time that we announce a scientific partnership between our company and JDRF," stated Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, EVP and chief science officer for Novo Nordisk. "Our new R&D center is founded on the principle of reaching out to academia, biotechnology companies and other key players in the international immunotherapy research community in order to join forces to develop the next treatment advance in the management of Type 1 diabetes."

The collaboration will focus on research originating from academia and biotechnology companies, as well as from internal research projects at Novo Nordisk.