Science Spotlight: Novo’s glucose-sensing insulin, two bacterial immunotherapies, and more

Six years after acquiring University of Bristol spinout Ziylo, Novo has published a “smart insulin” that uses the biotech’s macrocycle-based strategy to switch bioactivity on and off in response to blood glucose levels. The longstanding goal of smart insulins is to take responsibility for avoiding hypoglycemia out of patients’ hands by emulating insulin’s natural regulation.

Novo Nordisk A/S (CSE:NOVO B; NYSE:NVO) and collaborators at Carbometrics, which spun out from Ziylo Ltd. after the latter’s acquisition in 2018, described in Nature an insulin molecule that is active when glucose concentrations are high, and switches off when they are low. ...