News

March 14, 2024

Novo Holdings Portfolio Company Amolyt Pharma Enters into Definitive Agreement to be Acquired by AstraZeneca

Deal value up to US$1.05 billion

Novo Holdings co-led Series A financing in Amolyt, supported additional financings and is Amolyt’s largest investor

Acquisition validates Novo Holdings’ strategy to identify and invest long term in high quality European biotech companies

Copenhagen, Denmark - Novo Holdings A/S, a leading international life sciences investor, today announced that its portfolio company Amolyt Pharma (“Amolyt”), has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by AstraZeneca at a purchase price of US$800 million upfront and a potential milestone payment of US$250 million.

Based in Lyon, France and Boston, US, Amolyt is building on its team’s established expertise to deliver life-changing treatments to patients suffering from rare endocrine and related diseases. Amolyt’s clinical pipeline includes differentiated therapeutic peptides for the treatment of underserved rare endocrine disease. Its lead asset eneboparatide (AZP-3601) is an investigational daily subcutaneous injectable parathyroid hormone receptor 1 (PTHR1) agonist for the treatment of hypoparathyroidism, that is currently in Phase 3.

Novo Holdings co-led the Series A financing in 2019 when eneboparatide was still at preclinical stage, and continued to support the company through its follow-on Series B and Series C investments.  This investment highlights Novo Holdings’ evergreen structure and its ability to take a long-term view to advance science and medicine for the benefit of society, supporting early stage companies to advance programmes all the way through to late stage development.

Naveed Siddiqi, Board Director of Amolyt and Senior Partner at Novo Holdings, said: “Amolyt is a great example of a high quality European company created to address an underserved area of high unmet medical need and led by a highly capable management team that has a clear track record of biotech success.  As a long-standing shareholder and active Board member, Novo Holdings are extremely proud to support Amolyt to rapidly advance its pipeline from pre-clinical to Phase3 development including the in-licensing of additional assets in less than five years.”

Pierre Legault, Chairman of Amolyt Pharma’s Board of Directors, added “Today’s announcement recognizes the significant value we have built for our shareholders and patients. We are confident that with Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease our innovative science will be even better positioned to ultimately reach patients with rare diseases around the world.”

Further information

For further information:

Novo Holdings A/S
Dora González, Public Relations Specialist
+1 617 922 5027
dopg@novo.dk


Optimum Strategic Communications
Mary Clark, Vici Rabbetts, Katie Flint
+44 (0) 20 8078 4357
novo@optimumcomms.com


About Novo Holdings
Novo Holdings is a holding and investment company that is responsible for managing the assets and the wealth of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The purpose of Novo Holdings is to improve people’s health and the sustainability of society and the planet by generating attractive long-term returns on the assets of the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

Wholly owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Novo Holdings is the controlling shareholder of Novo Nordisk A/S and Novozymes A/S and manages an investment portfolio, with a long-term return perspective. Novo Holdings is a world-leading life sciences investor. Through its Seeds, Venture, Growth, and Principal Investments teams, Novo Holdings invests in life science companies at all stages of development.


About Novo Holdings Venture Investments
The Novo Holdings Venture Investments team is one of the largest and most active international life science venture investors with a track record of over 20 years investing in novel therapies. The Venture Investments portfolio includes both private and publicly traded investments in the biotech, medtech and digital health sectors, and spans early-stage, translatable science through commercial stage products. Novo Holdings’ evergreen structure enables the Venture Investments team to take a long- term view to advance science and medicine for the benefit of society. Venture Investments operates globally with teams based in San Francisco, Boston, London, and Copenhagen.  In 2023, Venture Investments returned $600 million to the Novo Nordisk Foundation, including proceeds from the sale of five portfolio companies to acquirers.


About Amolyt Pharma
Amolyt Pharma, a clinical stage biotechnology company, is building on its team’s established expertise to deliver life-changing treatments to patients suffering from rare endocrine and related diseases. Its development portfolio includes eneboparatide (AZP-3601), a long-acting PTH1 receptor agonist as a potential treatment for hypoparathyroidism, and AZP-3813, a peptide growth hormone receptor antagonist for the potential treatment of acromegaly. Amolyt Pharma aims to further expand and develop its portfolio by leveraging its global network in the field of endocrinology and with support from a strong syndicate of international investors. To learn more, visit https://amolytpharma.com/ or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn