Photys Therapeutics Announces Research Collaboration with Novo Nordisk to Target Cardiometabolic Diseases

Gunderson Dettmer represented client Photys Therapeutics, a proximity-based therapeutics company, in its multi-year collaboration and license agreement with Novo Nordisk to develop novel proximity-based therapeutics for a cardiometabolic disease target. The collaboration combines Novo Nordisk’s deep expertise in cardiometabolic diseases with Photys’ proprietary PHICS™ (PHosphorylation Inducing Chimeric Small molecules) technology, which induces proximity between a kinase and a target of interest to phosphorylate the target and thereby alter its biologic function.

In the announcement of the collaboration, Photys Chief Scientific Officer Alexandra Joseph, Ph.D. said, “This collaboration represents a strong alignment between the desire to control a critical protein and a technology capable of doing so in a tissue-specific manner. We believe that our PHICS™ technology is an important addition to the arsenal of induced proximity modalities through its novel ability to selectively control phosphorylation of any given target.”

The Gunderson Dettmer team was led by Tim Ehrlich and Joel Diamond and included Tim Kulis and Jordana Douglas.

Companies
Photys Therapeutics
Novo Nordisk