Novo follows three Swiss forays into a novel inflammatory target

Yesterday’s deal between Novo Nordisk and the private Canadian company Ventus Therapeutics represents the fourth recent move by a big company to access the NLRP3 inhibitor space. Roche and Novartis have led the way here, the former striking first with the takeover of Jecure in 2018, and the latter following with that of IFM Tre before Roche took a second dip and bought Inflazome. Clinical-stage projects targeting NLRP3, an inflammasome receptor thought to be involved in a variety of inflammatory diseases, include the IFM Tre and Inflazome-originated CFV890 and selnoflast respectively, while Ventus is still at the IND-enabling stage. Valuations already seem pretty rich. Novo is paying Ventus $70m up front; IFM Tre and Inflzome were sold for $310m and €380m ($373m) respectively; it was not disclosed how much Jecure fetched, but the group, which has yet to yield any lead projects, had raised just $20m in a series A before being acquired. Interestingly, Ventus has licensed only its lead, peripherally restricted asset, VENT-01, to Novo, for renal, cardiovascular and hepatic conditions including Nash. The private biotech retains rights to the brain-penetrant NLRP3 inhibitor VENT-02, for use in CNS inflammation and neurodegeneration.