Lumen Bioscience, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing biologics for highly prevalent diseases, has entered into a research collaboration with Novo Nordisk to evaluate Lumen’s drug development and manufacturing platform in Novo Nordisk’s research and development activities within obesity and other metabolic disorders. Financial terms were not disclosed.
 
The collaboration builds on previous research pointing to a diversity of relevant biology within the gastrointestinal tract that can potentially be modulated with therapeutic proteins. Lumen’s unique spirulina-based drug development environment unlocks the potential of orally delivered biologic drugs by manufacturing them with the scalability and affordability more typical of small-molecule drugs.
 
“Novo Nordisk is a world leading metabolic disease company, and we are thrilled that they share our enthusiasm for new strategies for delivering oral biologics,” said Brian Finrow, Lumen’s CEO. “This collaboration brings the best of two worlds together: Lumen’s expertise in large-scale, affordable manufacturing of orally delivered biologic drugs and Novo Nordisk’s expertise in the clinical development and commercialization of treatments for cardiometabolic disease.”
 
The initial stages of the research collaboration will take place over a year and the companies will jointly develop and evaluate the bioactivity of metabolically relevant molecules produced and delivered using spirulina.