Novo Nordisk pulled back from cell therapies last October, scrapping development of a type 1 diabetes therapy and laying off most employees working on this modality.
Following its exit from the cell therapy space, Novo Nordisk is passing on some of its related technologies and intellectual properties to Aspect Biosystems under an expanded partnership.
Announced Tuesday, this amended agreement will give Aspect rights to Novo’s stem cell-derived islet cells and hypoimmune cell engineering technologies, enabling the development of a cell therapy for type 1 diabetes. The Danish giant will also make an equity investment in and provide research funding to Aspect.
Novo, meanwhile, will have “defined rights” to play a bigger role in later-stage development, though it remains unclear what those rights might mean. The pharma will also receive royalties and milestones linked to product sales.
The partners did not provide a detailed financial breakdown of the deal.
The two companies first linked up in 2023, with Aspect using its “bioprinting” technology to design up to four therapies to treat “diabetes and/or obesity,” according to a 2023 announcement. That deal gave Novo an exclusive worldwide license to those therapies, at an upfront payment of $75 million to Aspect and an additional $650 million in potential milestone payments.
Tuesday’s expanded agreement with Aspect comes after Novo in October last year announced it would stop work in the cell therapy space, a move that claimed the jobs of nearly all 250 of the company’s cell therapy employees. Novo also pulled the plug on its type 1 diabetes program, which was focused on advancing a suite of interventions, including a stem cell-based medicine.
At the time, a spokesperson for the pharma hinted at potential deals to offload Novo’s cell therapy technologies. “We are in the process of identifying partners with the right capabilities and manufacturing capacity to further develop our innovations,” the spokesperson said.
Novo is in the midst of a priority pivot led by its new CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar. During the company’s second-quarter earnings call in August last year, Doustdar told analysts and investors that under his tenure, “we’re going to focus more on diabetes and obesity as this is our main core and has always been.”
Execution will be Doustdar’s main thrust, he added, and to support this drive, Novo implemented a sweeping cost restructuring initiative. In September 2025, that effort meant sweeping layoffs affecting around 9,000 employees across its global operations, generating $1.25 billion in annualized savings through 2026.
A few weeks later, Novo also broke off its 2021 partnership with Heartseed, a cell therapy specialist, ending a $598 million partnership aimed at developing a cell therapy for heart failure.
