Novo Nordisk IT spinout teams with Kinapse to serve biopharma R&D shops

NNIT CEO Per Kogut

NNIT, the IT services business that spun out of Novo Nordisk ($NVO), has teamed up with Kinapse to support life science R&D organizations. The plan is to pair NNIT's IT expertise with Kinapse's R&D know-how to deliver business process outsourcing (BPO) services to the biopharma industry.

Copenhagen, Denmark-based NNIT will handle IT aspects of the work, from the design, development and implementation of systems through to the ongoing maintenance, support and hosting of what it puts in place. The systems will support BPO and advisory services provided by Kinapse, which it pitches as tools to assist biopharma companies in their attempts to manage multiple aspects of the R&D process, from establishing a portfolio strategy through to complying with pharmacovigilance requirements.

Kinapse sees value in formalizing the link between its services and the underlying IT systems. "Our clients have been sourcing R&D BPO services in the marketplace for many decades," Marc Gabriel, global head of regulatory operations at Kinapse, said in a statement. "They are now looking to take the next step and bundle BPO and technology to a trusted team in a single unit-based transactions." Having identified demand for such a combined service, Kinapse went looking for an IT company that could deliver. "NNIT is the ideal partner for this type of joint offering," Gabriel said.

For NNIT, which spun out of Novo Nordisk earlier this year, the deal offers another way to broaden its life science client base. NNIT serviced other companies while it was part of Novo Nordisk. But in 2014, non-Novo Nordisk life science clients accounted for 12% of total turnover at NNIT, a figure management thought they could grow by striking out on their own. Performance since the spinout has leant credence to the idea. Last month, NNIT reported 17.9% organic growth from non-Novo Nordisk life science clients for the first 9 months of the year.  

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