Back in 2023, Novo Nordisk committed up to $1.3 billion for a hypertension and kidney disease drug from KBP Biosciences. Now, the pharma giant claims to have been misled by the biotech’s founder—and a judge seems to agree.
Novo Nordisk wants its money back from a biotech called KBP Biosciences that sold a hypertension and kidney disease drug to the Danish pharma for up to $1.3 billion in 2023.
In a claim filed with the Singapore International Commercial Court, Novo alleges that “it was misled into believing the defendants had developed a new and effective drug” for the conditions. Novo purchased the drug in question, ocedurenone, from Singapore-headquartered KBP in October 2023. At the time, Novo’s Head of Development Martin Holst Lange touted the drug’s “best-in-class potential.”
Ocedurenone was ultimately tossed out of Novo’s pipeline in November 2024 after failing a Phase III trial in chronic kidney disease. The failure cost Novo about $800 million in impairment charges.
Now, Novo has appealed to the Singaporean court to freeze the assets of KBP’s founder and chairman, Huang Zhenhua, as a wider lawsuit is prepared back in New York. According to a judgment dated February 14, a judge in Singapore has ruled that Novo has an arguable case. Novo is seeking $830 million in damages, which roughly amounts to what it has already paid out through the terms of the deal.
Despite promising to disclose all relevant materials to support ocedurenone, “KBP knowingly failed to disclose material information,” the judge ruled. That included Phase II data showing that ocedurenone was not effective, plus quality and compliance issues at a test site that produced false positive results.
Novo specifically called out Huang, who executed the purchase agreement on the biotech’s behalf. “Dr. Huang arguably knew and participated in these misrepresentations,” the judge wrote. “He was the founder, executive chairman and a 40% shareholder of KBP. There is a good arguable case that when Dr. Huang executed the [asset purchase agreement] he did so conscious of the unfavourable data.”
The judge granted Novo’s request to freeze Huang’s assets.
