Capitalising on strong demand for its obesity therapies, Novo Nordisk's growing appetite for deals has fuelled a bet on a U.S. gene-editing company called
Life Edit Therapeutics.
The Danish drugmaker's collaboration with Durham, North Carolina-based Life Edit Therapeutics - owned by ElevateBio, a cell and gene therapy company in Waltham - is
focused on up to seven programs for rare genetic disorders as well as cardiometabolic diseases.
At the heart of the tie-up is Life Edit's technology, called base editing, which is designed to make precise changes to the human genome by tweaking one base - or
letter - into a different one without affecting other letters.
Single-letter mistakes, called point mutations, can give rise to genetic diseases.