LAB eN2, the drug discovery accelerator launched by Evotec and Novo Nordisk in September 2023, has unveiled its first three projects and launched an expansion featuring five new academic partners.
The three initial projects come from Boston University, the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston and Harvard University in collaboration with Mass General Brigham, Evotec announced in a Dec. 11 release.
All of the projects are being given initial funding with the chance to earn additional funds based on preclinical milestones, Evotec said in the release. This funding can last up to the investigational new drug application stage, at which point Novo Nordisk has the option to license and develop the programs further.
The Joslin Diabetes Center and Boston University are among the five new partners, according to the release, along with Boston Children’s Hospital, Johns Hopkins University and Icahn Mount Sinai in New York City.
Harvad and Mass General Brigham were founding members of the partnership, alongside the Yale School of Medicine and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
The three projects all center around different cardiometabolic conditions, according to the release. The Boston University project will examine the role of inflammation within cardiometabolic diseases, especially chronic kidney disease and obesity, to look for potential new drugs.
The Harvard Medical School team will investigate molecular mechanisms related to bariatric surgery to find potential modulators of metabolic disease, while the Joslin Diabetes Center researchers are going after a new target in Type 1 diabetes.
“The first selected projects offer novel approaches to address chronic cardiometabolic conditions, and we look forward to working with the primary investigators to advance their research,” Uli Stilz, Ph.D., head of Novo Nordisk’s Bio Innovation Hub, said in the release. “We’ve been pleased with the progress so far and with the addition of five institutions, we have the opportunity to further our ability to drive more scientific ideas forward.”
LAB eN2 isn’t the first collaboration between Novo and Evotec; the two forged a pact to discover and develop drugs for chronic kidney disease back in 2020.