Cellular Intelligence has acquired global rights to Novo Nordisk’s clinical‑stage cell therapy program for Parkinson’s disease, a fast-growing neurodegenerative disease that affects close to 12 million people worldwide, the company announced today.
As part of the agreement, Novo Nordisk will make an equity investment in Cellular Intelligence and will be eligible for future milestone payments and royalties. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“Through this agreement, Cellular Intelligence aims to advance the continued clinical development of the cell therapy Parkinson's program and deliver a meaningful, disease-modifying therapy for people living with Parkinson's disease,” the company said in a press release.
Cellular Intelligence plans to apply its AI foundation model, which is trained on millions of cellular perturbation conditions, to accelerate the development and manufacturing of the therapy toward commercialization. The company says its platform can compress traditional cell‑therapy timelines and reduce production costs, a key barrier to commercializing complex regenerative‑medicine products.
FDA Fast Track designation
The deal gives Cellular Intelligence control of an allogeneic, pluripotent stem‑cell‑derived dopaminergic progenitor therapy already in a first-in-human Phase ½ clinical trial and designated by the FDA for Fast Track designation status as well as IND clearance for further clinical development.
The therapy was developed by Novo Nordisk.
"This cell therapy Parkinson's program is truly innovative and exemplifies the powerful convergence of exciting academic discovery with the uncompromising quality of a global pharmaceutical leader, and we are honored to carry the program into its next chapter," said Micha Breakstone, Ph.D, co-founder and CEO of Cellular Intelligence.
He added that scaling advanced cell therapies for global use is “exactly the challenge our AI‑native platform was built to solve.”
To lead clinical advancement, Cellular Intelligence has appointed neurologist Nuno Mendonça, MD, as chief medical officer. Mendonça has previously held senior roles at Bial, AbbVie, and Novartis Gene Therapies, overseeing neuroscience and rare‑disease programs across North America and Europe.
Novo Nordisk said it sought a partner capable of advancing the program’s scientific and manufacturing complexity.
“We are convinced that Cellular Intelligence has the capabilities needed to move it forward,” said Jacob Petersen, the company’s senior vice president of global research. "The convergence of developmental biology and genomics, and the possibility of combining this with AI on a single platform, provide an exciting opportunity in medicine in general, and for the cell therapy field in particular."
In October, Danish publication Borsen reported that Novo Nordisk had decided to discontinue its cell therapy research and development efforts for diabetes, a stem cell therapy for heart disease, and another cell therapy candidate for Parkinson's disease in early-stage trials.
The cuts came amid restructuring at the company aimed at cutting costs and refocusing research efforts.