Novo Nordisk partners with Vivtex in a deal worth up to $2.1 billion

Novo Nordisk announced on Feb. 25, 2026, a research collaboration with Vivtex Corp, a privately held Boston biotechnology company, to develop next-generation oral biologic drugs for obesity, diabetes and other metabolic diseases ^[1][2]. Under the deal, Vivtex could receive up to $2.1 billion in payments, along with royalties on any future product sales, while Novo Nordisk will oversee global development and commercialization of any resulting drugs ^[1][2].

The companies did not disclose the size of the upfront payment Novo Nordisk is making to Vivtex, but confirmed it comes on top of the potential $2.1 billion in milestone payments ^[1]. Vivtex will license some of its oral drug-delivery technology to Novo Nordisk as part of the arrangement ^[1].

Biologic drugs like GLP-1 medicines are typically given as injections because their large molecular size makes them hard to absorb through the stomach and gut when swallowed as pills ^[2]. Vivtex says its platform uses gut-screening tests, delivery technologies and artificial intelligence tools, including what the company calls a "gut-on-a-chip" approach, to test many drug formulations quickly and find ones that can pass through the digestive system and get taken up by the body ^[1][2].

Novo Nordisk already has experience turning GLP-1 biologics into pills. The company brought the diabetes drug Rybelsus, an oral form of semaglutide, to market in 2019, and it launched an oral form of its obesity drug Wegovy in the U.S. in January 2026, calling it the world's first oral drug for obesity ^[1][2]. Brian Vandahl, Novo Nordisk's senior vice president of therapeutics discovery, said in a statement that the deal reflects an effort to lean on "both internal and external innovation" to find new cardiometabolic medicines ^[2]. Vivtex CEO Thomas von Erlach told BioPharma Dive that "every single patient indication would prefer to have a drug available via oral instead of needle administration" ^[2].

Vivtex, co-founded in 2018 by von Erlach along with MIT professors Giovanni Traverso and Bob Langer, has struck similar partnerships since early 2024 with Astellas Pharma, Orbis Medicines, Equillium and AI Proteins ^[2]. Langer said in a statement that advancements making biologic medicines easier to take, while keeping their effectiveness, "have the potential to significantly change patient care" ^[2].

Why it matters for patients

This deal is about future drug development, not a product patients can access now. No specific drug candidate, disease target, or timeline for human testing was disclosed in the announcement ^[1][2]. For people currently using GLP-1 medicines, nothing changes: Wegovy, Ozempic, Rybelsus and the oral Wegovy pill remain available as they are today ^[2].

The broader significance is that Novo Nordisk is trying to protect and extend its early advantage in oral GLP-1 delivery as competitors work on their own pill versions of similar drugs ^[2]. If Vivtex's delivery technology helps create better-absorbed oral biologics down the road, it could eventually mean more choices between pills and injections for people managing obesity or diabetes. But that outcome, if it happens at all, is likely years away, since the collaboration is still in a research and development stage ^[1][2].

What happens next

The sources do not specify a timeline for when any drug candidates from this collaboration might enter human clinical trials or when milestone payments might be triggered ^[1][2]. Separately, on Feb. 26, 2026, BioPharma Dive reported that Eli Lilly's oral GLP-1 drug orforglipron outperformed Novo Nordisk's Rybelsus in a head-to-head trial for diabetes, underscoring the competitive pressure driving Novo Nordisk's push into new oral delivery technology ^[2].