In 2022, the Novo Nordisk China R&D Center and ATLATL Dart Innovation Center jointly launched the ‘StarStart’ program. This initiative aims to provide support to promising and high-quality innovation projects. It represents an essential project for Novo Nordisk as it seeks to enhance collaboration with local innovation forces in China.

The winning team will not only receive priority for moving into any of the ATLATL sites but also be awarded a prize of RMB 500,000. This prize will cover the rent for the darts and the R&D services provided. Additionally, the winning team will benefit from targeted guidance offered by Novo Nordisk’s drug discovery experts.

The StarStart Innovation Competition has been successfully held for the first time, and the final roadshow for this year’s competition took place on September 8th.

The event also garnered significant support and attention from Novo Nordisk’s global R&D team. The panel of judges for the offline competition included esteemed individuals such as Dr. Karin Conde-Knape, Senior Vice President of Global Drug Discovery; Dr. Miriam Frieden, Corporate Vice President of Early Stage R&D Innovation Collaboration and Alliances; Dr. Dan Han, Corporate Vice President of Novo Nordisk and President of China R&D Center; Dr. Zhu Dart, Founder and CEO of the Innovation Center; and Dr. Li Jian, President and CEO of the Innovation Center. Additionally, Dr. Pengcheng Zhu, Founder and CEO of the Innovation Center, played a pivotal role in this prestigious event.

With its cutting-edge translational research in the field of immuno-metabolism and excellent preclinical efficacy data in the First-in-Class pipeline, META Pharmaceuticals has been successfully selected as one of the five finalists in the final round of the EntreStar 2023 program.

Dr. Ke Xu, Co-Founder and CEO of META Pharmaceuticals, will deliver a keynote speech on behalf of META Pharmaceuticals at this offline final in Shanghai.

About StarStart

The StarStart Innovation Competition offers $500,000 in funding, professional mentorship and a world-class lab environment in hopes of helping early-stage innovative drug discovery companies. The competition focuses on many different areas, providing solutions for metabolic diseases, fibrosis, chronic inflammation, or developing innovative technology platforms to address key issues in the drug discovery process. The two winning teams selected by the competition will be able to be prioritized for admission to any of the Dart Innovation Center sites; receive a prize of RMB 500,000 to cover the rent for admission to Dart and the R&D services it provides; and receive targeted guidance from Novo Nordisk’s drug discovery experts.

About Novo Nordisk

Founded in 1923, Novo Nordisk is the world’s leading biopharmaceutical company and a world leader in the development and production of insulin for the treatment of diabetes. Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, Novo Nordisk sells its products in 179 countries. Its goal is to drive change to defeat diabetes and other serious chronic diseases such as obesity, rare blood disorders and endocrine disruption.

About ATLATL Dart Innovation & Research Center

ATLATL Innovation & Research Center is a global innovation and R&D center located in the heart of several prestigious science parks in China, creating a new life sciences ecosystem by partnering with entrepreneurs, investors, pharmaceutical companies and service companies. This ecosystem attracts top research programs and talent from around the world, facilitating the development of medicines that benefit global healthcare.

About META

META Pharmaceuticals Inc. is an original drug company focusing on autoimmune disease drug discovery and development. Based on cutting-edge emerging biological theories, META develops safer and more effective autoimmune targets by regulating cellular metabolism to effectively regulate the immune system function, focusing on first-in-class new drug discovery and development. We focus on first-in-class drug discovery and development to provide much-needed medicines to many patients around the world.