Novo Nordisk’s owner backs an Italian fund to grow drug startups beyond Denmark

Novo Holdings, the investment company that controls Novo Nordisk and holds the wealth of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, is backing a fund aimed at Italian drug startups, according to Bloomberg.

The move extends a pattern that has seen the Danish investor push capital into life sciences hubs well outside Copenhagen, including European deep-tech vehicles backed alongside the European Investment Fund and the NATO Innovation Fund.

Novo Holdings is not a household name in the way Novo Nordisk is, but it is the entity that actually owns and steers the drugmaker behind Ozempic and Wegovy.

It ended 2025 with total assets under management of DKK 694 billion, or roughly €93 billion, a figure worth stating precisely given how often the older, larger number still circulates.

That AUM was down sharply from the €142 billion reported a year earlier, a drop Novo Holdings attributedmainly to the fall in...

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