Emisphere’s Proprietary Eligen Technology Supports Novo Nordisk’s Oral Semaglutide


Novo Nordisk A/S recently announced the headline results from PIONEER 5, a Phase 3a trial with oral semaglutide in adults with type 2 diabetes and moderate renal impairment.

Oral semaglutide is an investigational GLP-1 analogue taken once daily as a tablet. Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide utilizes Emisphere Technologies, Inc.’s (OTCBB:EMIS) (Emisphere) proprietary Eligen Technology, and is subject to an exclusive license agreement that provides for payments by Novo Nordisk to Emisphere upon the achievement of specified development and sales milestones, in addition to royalty payments.

“Novo Nordisk values our continued collaboration with Emisphere and looks forward to working with the Eligen technology under our current agreements”, said Marcus Schindler, senior vice president of Global Drug Discovery in Novo Nordisk.

On July 12, 2018, MHR Fund Management LLC and certain of its affiliated funds (MHR) converted $963,781 of certain of its secured convertible notes having a conversion price of $0.50 per share into 1,927,562 shares of Emisphere’s common stock. Excluding the amounts converted on July 12, 2018, $67,237,535 of Emisphere’s secured convertible notes were outstanding as of June 30, 2018.

Further, on July 13, 2018, Emisphere repaid $1,000,000 of its outstanding debt under that certain secured Loan Agreement, dated August 20, 2014, between MHR and Emisphere (the “Loan Facility”), which repayment was required pursuant to the terms thereof.  Excluding the amounts repaid on July 13, 2018, $30,888,112 was outstanding under this Loan Facility as of June 30, 2018.

Emisphere is a drug delivery company that utilizes its proprietary Eligen Technology to develop new oral formulations of therapeutic agents. Emisphere is currently partnered with a global pharmaceutical company for the development of new orally delivered therapeutics. For more information, visit www.emisphere.com.