After dominating the market for weight loss drugs, Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk has set its sights on tackling treatments for heart disease next.
The Danish pharma giant announced Monday that it is acquiring Cardior Pharmaceuticals to the tune of 1.03 billion euros ($1.1 billion). Cardior, a Germany-based drug maker, develops therapies that target RNA to prevent and treat heart diseases. Novo Nordisk said the deal is an important step for the company to establish its presence in the sector.
“By welcoming Cardior as a part of Novo Nordisk, we will strengthen our pipeline of projects in cardiovascular disease where we already have ongoing programmes across all phases of clinical development,” said Martin Holst Lange, executive vice president for Development at Novo Nordisk, in a statement.
The deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2024, includes Cardior’s leading drug candidate CDR132L. The treatment is currently in a phase 2 clinical trial testing its effectiveness at treating heart failure. It is designed to stop and reverse heart failure by blocking abnormal levels of the microRNA molecule miR-132.
Novo Nordisk plans to launch a second phase 2 trial of the medication to investigate its effect on cardiac hypertrophy, a condition that makes the walls of the heart thick and stiff.
Wegovy is now covered by Medicare for its own health benefits
The news comes after the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced last week that Medicare Part D plans can now cover Novo Nordisk’s popular weight loss drug Wegovy — at least for patients who are prescribed the medication to reduce their risk of serious heart events (like, say, heart attacks and strokes).
“[A]nti-obesity medications that receive FDA approval for an additional medically accepted indication can be considered a Part D drug for that specific use,” a CMS spokesperson told Quartz in an emailed statement.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded the approved use of Wegovy on March 8, months after Novo Nordisk announced results from a clinical trial that found the drug cut the risk of serious heart events by 20%.