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Novo Nordisk is making a major bet on technology that could dramatically reduce how often patients need to inject obesity and diabetes medicines. The Danish pharmaceutical giant has entered a licensing and development agreement with Sweden’s Nanexa potentially worth up to $1.3 billion, centered on a drug-delivery platform designed to keep medicines working inside the body for much longer periods.

The agreement focuses on Nanexa’s PharmaShell technology, which uses an extremely thin coating around drug particles to control how quickly medicine is released. Novo Nordisk hopes the approach could eventually allow certain treatments to be administered once a month—or potentially even once every three months—rather than through the weekly injections commonly associated with today’s blockbuster GLP-1 medicines.

For Novo Nordisk, the potential is significant. The company helped transform the obesity-treatment market through semaglutide, the active ingredient behind Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic. Reducing injection frequency could make future medicines more convenient for patients while giving Novo another way to differentiate its treatments in an increasingly competitive market.

Under the agreement, Novo Nordisk will license PharmaShell for use with an undisclosed drug compound and will work with Nanexa to develop the resulting treatment. Nanexa is eligible for upfront and development-related payments as well as additional milestone payments if the program successfully progresses toward commercialization.

The total potential value of those payments could reach approximately $1.3 billion, although much of that amount depends on future development, regulatory and commercial milestones. As with other pharmaceutical licensing agreements, the headline value therefore does not mean the entire $1.3 billion will be paid immediately or necessarily be realized.

The deal expands an existing relationship between the two companies. Novo Nordisk and Nanexa have already spent years exploring whether PharmaShell can be combined with peptide medicines to create longer-acting formulations, giving Novo experience with the technology before committing to the larger licensing agreement.

PharmaShell works by applying layers of inorganic material around drug particles. By adjusting those layers, Nanexa says it can control the rate at which a medicine is released over time. If successfully adapted to obesity drugs, the technology could extend the interval between doses without requiring patients to take a substantially different medicine.

That possibility comes as drugmakers increasingly compete not only on how much weight their medicines can help patients lose, but also on convenience. Weekly injections have already become widely used, while companies including Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are developing oral drugs and next-generation treatments intended to make obesity therapy easier to use.

Longer-lasting injections could provide another option. A patient who currently administers a medicine every week might eventually need only 12 injections per year with a monthly formulation—or potentially four with a quarterly treatment. Whether PharmaShell can achieve those intervals while maintaining safety and consistent drug levels will ultimately depend on clinical development.

Novo Nordisk executive Brian Stidsen Vandahl said the company sees value in developing different treatment approaches as the population using obesity medicines becomes increasingly diverse. Patients can have different preferences and experiences with treatment, meaning there may not be a single delivery method that works best for everyone.

The investment also reflects how the obesity-drug competition is expanding beyond the molecules themselves. As Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and a growing group of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies develop new treatments, delivery technology could become another important way to distinguish products and improve adherence.

For Novo Nordisk, the Nanexa partnership offers a potential path toward making injectable obesity medicines significantly less burdensome. A monthly or quarterly treatment remains a development goal rather than a guaranteed outcome, but if PharmaShell succeeds, it could change one of the most recognizable characteristics of the GLP-1 era: the weekly injection.