Novo Nordisk Foundation Commits €736M to Scale European Life Sciences
The Novo Nordisk Foundation has committed up to €736 million (~$856 million) to Copenhagen-based BioInnovation Institute in a nine-year funding program aimed at expanding early-stage life sciences and deep tech activity across Europe. The capital is earmarked to increase the number of startups supported by BII, broaden its geographic footprint beyond Denmark, and extend its focus into areas such as artificial intelligence and quantum technologies.
The Foundation, the non-profit owner of Novo Nordisk and currently the world’s largest charitable organization by assets, positions the investment as part of a longer-term effort to improve how European scientific research is translated into venture-backed companies.
BioInnovation Institute, founded in 2018, operates as a hybrid research organization and startup builder, running multiple programs for early-stage companies across human and planetary life sciences. Its partners include other large philanthropic actors such as the Gates Foundation and the Lundbeck Foundation.
Within its broader portfolio, BII has also incubated a set of platform-driven companies where the primary asset is a reusable technological capability. Recent and current examples include:
- Model-MI, developing a scalable human placenta-on-chip system for drug safety testing
- smartRNA, a small-RNA platform targeting diseases caused by reduced protein expression
- Nano-X, focused on in-vivo T-cell engineering through modular gene and protein delivery
- Biomia, engineering CNS small molecule therapeutics via AI-driven discovery and yeast-based biomanufacturing
- Skape Bio, using AI-powered protein design and high-throughput screening for GPCR drug discovery
- Dandelion Diagnostics, using nanoscale photonic sensors and AI to generate disease fingerprints
To date, BII reports having helped create and develop more than 130 companies, which together have attracted over 7 billion Danish kroner, around $1.1 billion, in external capital. Its current portfolio spans areas from reproductive health, including XY Therapeutics, to agtech, such as Agrobiomics.
The new funding is also expected to reinforce BII’s activity in computationally intensive domains. The institute already operates a quantum lab and has backed companies working on quantum-secure communications and cryptography, including CUbIQ Technologies and Quantropi.
The move sits alongside the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s broader investment footprint. Through its holding company, Novo Holdings, the organization has backed more than 300 companies and funds since 2000, deploying a reported 41 billion Danish kroner over that period, according to PitchBook. In 2025 alone, Novo Holdings invested approximately $749 million into startups.
This philanthropic-backed expansion of early-stage capital in Europe is being mirrored, in a different form, by foundation-owned pharmaceutical groups. Early this month, Servier announced the launch of Servier Ventures, a fully owned corporate venture fund with an initial commitment of €200 million.
The fund is structured to take minority stakes in biotech and technology companies, with a primary focus on oncology and neurology, and an initial geographic emphasis on Europe. Servier framed the vehicle as an extension of its existing R&D and venture activities (see its €1B AI drug discovery partnership with Iktos, and Insilico Medicine $888M oncology R&D deal), designed to secure earlier access to emerging science while selectively providing portfolio companies with access to internal scientific expertise.
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Topic: Biotech Ventures
