• NovAliX is a drug discovery focused CRO with award-winning chemistry teams and one of the world’s most comprehensive biophysics platforms.
• Bruker and NovAliX intend to collaborate on enabling new paradigms in drug discovery, leveraging advanced biophysical methods, and NMR in particular, to structural, binding and functional characterization.

STRASBOURG, France / Aug 07, 2024 / Business Wire / Bruker Corporation (Nasdaq: BRKR) today announced a strategic investment in NovAliX, a preclinical Contract Research Organization (CRO) specializing in expert drug discovery services, headquartered in Strasbourg, France. The minority investment aims to accelerate the growth and further expansion of NovAliX, particularly within Europe and the United States.

Bruker and NovAliX collaborate strategically to develop novel drug discovery technologies and methods, with the goal of enabling new paradigms in leveraging biophysical methods for drug discovery. The companies will partner on advancing functional structural biology, biophysical methods for characterizing molecular dynamics and interactions, biocondensates and aggregation, drug candidate binding, therapeutic mechanisms of action (MoA), and elucidating potential off-target effects.

The overarching objectives are to discover new or improved targets, as well as new drug modalities or optimized drug candidates, and to predict drug discovery failures earlier. NovAliX will benefit from Bruker’s unique technologies in innovative high-end biophysical characterization methods, particularly NMR, but also leveraging biosensors, mass spectrometry, single-cell and spatial biology tools, to advance NovAliX services for discovery and development of new medicines even faster.

NovAliX excels in drug discovery, combining biophysics, medicinal chemistry, and pharmacology, and is home to award-winning scientists who have invented drugs that are benefiting patients today. Their advanced biophysics platform supports drug discovery from target assessment to lead optimization. NovAliX partnerships, e.g., with the Max Planck Institute in Cryo-EM, or on a unique DNA-Encoded Library (DEL) platform, highlight their commitment to advancing drug discovery through technology and strategic alliances.

Bruker’s partnership with NovAliX will enable both companies to accelerate the development, incubation, deployment and support for advanced biophysical methods, leveraging Bruker’s leading post-genomic solutions competencies, combined with NovAliX’s expert services and innovation.

Anticipated areas of joint innovation in drug discovery methods include, for example:

• Ultra-high field NMR functional structural and binding investigations on protein and RNA structures and complexes, as well as on novel therapeutic peptides and oligonucleotides
• NMR-powered medicinal chemistry, structure-activity relationships (SAR) and MoA research
• Biologics and new drug modalities higher-order structure confirmation, similarity assessment and QC by NMR
• Unique NMR studies of intrinsically disordered proteins or regions (IDPs/IDRs) for condensate biology in drug discovery and condensate cell biology studies
• X-ray crystallography for structure-guided drug discovery
• High sensitivity, high-throughput SPR for kinetics, affinity, and binding studies
• High-performance MS for proteomics, multiomics, glycobiology, native MS and proteoforms
• Single cell and spatial biology tools for cell and tissue heterogeneity insights for drug discovery

Stephan Jenn, President and Co-founder of NovAliX, commented: “This partnership with Bruker will fortify our leadership in biophysics and drug discovery. Leveraging Bruker’s state-of-the-art analytical technologies and expertise, we can offer advanced biophysical methods to our clients. This collaboration promises to drive significant advancements in drug discovery, leading to new and effective treatments for patients globally.”

“Together with the talented and very experienced scientific team of NovAliX, we aspire to offer cutting-edge biophycial tools and solutions, such as ultra-high field NMR for oligonucleotides and peptides to biopharma and biotech companies,” added Dr. Falko Busse, the President of the Bruker BioSpin Group. “This partnership will help us gain further insights and advance our mission to support the discovery of new and better medicines with our enabling and differentiated life-science research and biopharma QC solutions, in partnership with NovAliX.”

Looking ahead, Bruker and NovAliX also plan to conduct joint innovation activities through the Biophysics Institute for Biomedical Research (IBRB) in Strasbourg. This new institute, set to open in 2026, will host biotechs, start-ups, and academic groups, fostering collaboration and innovation in the field of biophysics and drug discovery.

Financial details of the investment were not disclosed. NovAliX achieved substantial revenue from its collaborations with biopharma customers and drug-discovery partners, predominantly in Europe, but now also expanding in the United States and Japan. NovAliX has a highly scientific and technical workforce with over 430 employees, distributed across its European R&D and CRO service sites and an additional medicinal chemistry North-African site.

About Bruker Corporation – Leader of the Post-Genomic Era (Nasdaq: BRKR)

Bruker is enabling scientists and engineers to make breakthrough post-genomic discoveries and develop new applications that improve the quality of human life. Bruker’s high performance scientific instruments and high value analytical and diagnostic solutions enable scientists to explore life and materials at molecular, cellular, and microscopic levels. In close cooperation with our customers, Bruker is enabling innovation, improved productivity, and customer success in post-genomic life science molecular and cell biology research, in applied and biopharma applications, in microscopy and nanoanalysis, as well as in industrial and cleantech research, and next-gen semiconductor metrology in support of AI. Bruker offers differentiated, high-value life science and diagnostics systems and solutions in preclinical imaging, clinical phenomics research, proteomics and multiomics, spatial and single-cell biology, functional structural and condensate biology, as well as in clinical microbiology and molecular diagnostics. For more information, please visit www.bruker.com.