EPO meets with Novo Nordisk

The EPO met with Novo Nordisk on 10 April 2025. Vice President for IP Lars Balzer Nielsen gave an interview on 9 May.

On 10 April, the European Patent Office (EPO) met with Novo Nordisk, a global pharmaceutical company with a primary focus on diabetes, obesity and weight management, alongside an ambition to expand in the areas of rare diseases, cardiovascular, and emerging therapy areas. The Novo Nordisk delegation was led by Vice President of IP Lars Balzer Nielsen and included members of the company’s worldwide IP department based in Denmark, the United States and India. On the side of the EPO, the meeting was chaired by Steve Rowan, Vice-President for the Patent Granting Process. 

In his opening remarks Mr Nielsen underlined Novo Nordisk’s long-standing strategy of first filing at the EPO. He explained that this approach is based on the EPO’s high quality, which provides a strong foundation for Novo Nordisk’s global IP portfolio. He also discussed how the company focusses on quality over quantity when it comes to its patent applications and how crucial a strong IP system is to incentivising future innovation. Due to its present pipeline, filings from Novo Nordisk are likely to increase in the future.

Operational topics addressed by Novo Nordisk included adaptation of the description, assessment of inventive step in view of clinical trials and closest prior art for inventive step for medical use inventions. During the exchange the EPO presented the objectives and actions laid out in Strategic Plan 2028 related to the Unitary Patent, quality and user outreach. The Novo Nordisk delegation also expressed interest during the discussion of the EPO Observatory on Patents and Technology’s health-related activities.

In an interview following the meeting, Mr Nielsen expressed that he found the exchange "extremely useful". This was "an opportunity we really appreciated, to have our point of view heard," he noted, adding that during the meeting Novo Nordisk was "also made aware of ways of interacting with the EPO in the prosecution process which we have used since with great success."

This is the tenth interview in the series “The voice of our users”. In each episode, we invite users to share their views on the EPO, our practices and the patent system. 

About Novo Nordisk

Novo Nordisk is a pharmaceutical company that employs more than 77 300 people and conducts business in over 80 countries. It has an in-house IP department with around 80 employees headquartered in Denmark but also reside in the US, China and India. It primarily works in the field of chronic diseases and historically has specialised in insulin, haemophilia products and growth hormone products. Most recently, it has found major commercial success with its GLP-1 drugs for type 2 diabetes and weight management.