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Novo Nordisk Foundation, the world’s richest philanthropic organisation, is boosting spending beyond its home of Denmark to bolster Europe’s capabilities in fields including quantum computing and life sciences.
The organisation disbursed a record €1.6bn in 2025, with 21 per cent directed outside Denmark compared with 9 per cent in 2023. Despite troubles at Novo Nordisk, the maker of blockbuster weight-loss drugs in which it is the controlling shareholder, the foundation’s chief executive said its programmes would expand to stimulate science-led innovation across Europe.
While Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen stressed that the foundation was “not at all a political organisation”, it was co-ordinating with the EU as frictions between European countries and the US increase, including over pharmaceuticals pricing and the regulation of big tech companies.
The foundation is talking to senior officials in the European Commission from Ursula von der Leyen downward about co-ordinating research and innovation strategy. “We see ourselves as a private philanthropic partner to the EU,” Thomsen told the FT, adding that he was also keen to work with other European countries such as the UK.
While health and life sciences remain at the forefront of the foundation’s work, it has also moved into climate research and green energy — and, more radically, into quantum computing. Last year, it invested €80mn in a Nordic initiative, QuNorth, which aims to develop the world’s most powerful quantum computer.
The value of drugmaker Novo Nordisk, in which the foundation holds a 28 per cent stake and 77 per cent of voting rights, has fallen more than half in the past year as it faced growing competition for its weight-loss drugs and reduced pricing in the US, its largest market. But other investments combined with increasing Novo Nordisk dividends and share buybacks would support continued expansion, Thomsen said.
Pressure from the foundation for decisive action to reverse Novo Nordisk’s slowing profits growth led to the resignation of the company’s chair and six independent directors in October. They were replaced by candidates put forward by the foundation.
Normally the foundation and company “operate at arm’s length, according to a lot of legal principles”, Thomsen said. “That was an exception last year.”
Thomsen expressed confidence in the financial health and growth prospects of the company where he was chief scientific officer for many years. “It is not a sinking ship by any means,” he said. “There is so much untapped potential for the company’s products globally.”
Novo Nordisk Foundation funding has underpinned Denmark’s remarkable success in building productive research programmes, particularly in the life sciences, said Professor David Budtz Pedersen, an innovation expert at Aalborg University. “The pockets of Danish universities are pretty much filled now with Novo funding, so it is natural evolution to expand their portfolio to other regions.”
Beyond Europe, the foundation spent most in east Africa, followed by south and south-east Asia. In 2024, it set up a $300mn global health partnership with Wellcome Trust and Gates Foundation, the two philanthropic organisations often compared with Novo, which have been active in low and middle-income countries for much longer.
But the foundation would resist pressure to spread its resources too thinly, Thomsen said.
Data visualisation by Steven Bernard