Novo Nordisk is partnering with Danish biotechnology company Orbis Medicines in a drug discovery and licensing agreement worth up to $1.4 billion to discover and develop oral treatments for cardiometabolic diseases. The collaboration combines Novo Nordisk’s expertise in obesity and cardiometabolic disease with Orbis Medicines’ AI-enabled macrocycle drug discovery platform.
Announced on September 17, 2026, the multi-target collaboration will focus on discovering and developing orally bioavailable macrocycle drug candidates for cardiometabolic targets. Under the agreement, Orbis Medicines is eligible to receive up to $1.4 billion in upfront and potential development and commercial milestone payments, along with tiered royalties on future product sales.
Novo Nordisk will also make a strategic investment in Orbis Medicines. The companies have not disclosed the size of that investment or provided a breakdown of the potential $1.4 billion deal value.
AI Meets Macrocycle Drug Discovery
At the center of the collaboration is Orbis Medicines’ proprietary nGen platform, which integrates generative artificial intelligence with high-throughput synthesis and screening capabilities.
The platform is designed to generate and optimize fully synthetic macrocycle compounds called nCycles. According to Orbis Medicines, its nGen system uses a lab-in-the-loop approach in which data generated through automated chemistry and screening is used to inform subsequent compound design.
Macrocycles are a class of molecules that can interact with biological targets that may be difficult for conventional small-molecule drugs to address. Orbis Medicines is developing its technology around the challenge of creating macrocycles with properties suitable for oral administration.
The company says its nGen platform is designed to improve the oral bioavailability and drug-like properties of macrocycles through repeated cycles of design, synthesis, testing and analysis.
A Push Toward Oral Cardiometabolic Treatments
The Novo Nordisk-Orbis collaboration will target multiple cardiometabolic areas, with the goal of developing oral macrocycle medicines. The companies have not disclosed the specific targets or drug candidates involved in the agreement.
The partnership is a drug discovery and development collaboration rather than the launch of an approved medicine. Any candidates emerging from the research would still need to undergo the appropriate preclinical and clinical development processes and receive regulatory approval before they could become available to patients.
The agreement comes as Novo Nordisk continues to expand its use of artificial intelligence in pharmaceutical research. The company announced a separate collaboration with Anthropic on September 16, 2026, focused on applying AI capabilities to scientific research, drug discovery and drug development.
For Orbis Medicines, the Novo Nordisk agreement represents a major pharmaceutical collaboration for its oral macrocycle technology. The company has raised €116 million in venture funding to date, including a €90 million Series A financing announced in January 2025.
The potential $1.4 billion value of the Novo Nordisk agreement is tied to upfront and future development and commercial milestone payments. It is not a $1.4 billion upfront payment. The companies have not disclosed the financial breakdown of the potential deal value.
The partnership highlights the pharmaceutical industry’s growing interest in combining artificial intelligence, automated chemistry and experimental drug discovery to develop new medicines, including potential oral treatments for targets that have traditionally been addressed with injectable therapies.
