A Danish Foundation Bets on Europe's Obesity Science

The Novo Nordisk Foundation commits 450m kroner to move cardiometabolic research out of the lab.

21 Jun 2026

Europe has no shortage of promising obesity science. What it lacks, often, is a bridge from university lab to industry pipeline. The Novo Nordisk Foundation is trying to build one. Its new pan-European programme, CardioMetabolic Bridge, will commit up to 450 million Danish kroner, roughly 60.2 million euros, over six years to accelerate drug discovery for obesity and related cardiometabolic conditions.

The BioInnovation Institute, a Copenhagen-based life-science entrepreneurship organisation, will run the programme. It has already supported more than 130 companies through earlier venture schemes, giving it a track record the foundation is now betting on at greater scale. A first laboratory site opens in London this month, with hubs in Italy and Germany to follow later in the year.

Selected academic projects will receive funding alongside mentoring from entrepreneurs and industry veterans, a combination meant to do more than simply write cheques. Professor Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, the foundation's chief executive, wants Europe's cardiometabolic science converted into patient solutions rather than left stranded in laboratories.

Nearly 5.5 billion kroner have already been pledged separately to scale the BioInnovation Institute through 2035, and the new initiative sits alongside that much larger commitment. Imperial College London has expressed strong interest in taking part, a sign of the depth of relevant research already underway at European universities.

The foundation operates independently of the listed Novo Nordisk company, a distinction worth noting given how the two are often conflated. Even so, the programme widens the pipeline of early-stage science that could eventually feed obesity and diabetes drug development across the continent, just as competition in the category keeps intensifying.