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The Novo Nordisk Prize is an annual award presented to acknowledge exceptional contributions within the fields of medical and health sciences. [1] [2] It is specifically aimed at individuals who have demonstrated outstanding research or innovation that has the potential to advance medical science, particularly in areas related to diabetes, endocrinology, and biopharmaceutical science. [3] The prize is administered by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, an independent Danish enterprise foundation. [4]
Established by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the prize reflects the Foundation's commitment to support health, scientific, and humanitarian efforts through research. The Foundation holds a controlling interest in the Danish pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk. [4]
The prize, originally DKK 50,000 (approx $7,200), was first awarded on 16 February 1963. [5] [6] Since then, the amount awarded has gradually increased. The prize was called the Novo Prize from 1963 until 1989, when it was renamed the Novo Nordisk Prize. Until 2020 the Prize was given for a Danish contribution. In 2020, it has been decided to change the geographical scope of the prize and from 2021 the prize will be awarded for a European contribution. [7]
The Novo Nordisk Prize includes a monetary award, the amount of which can vary from year to year. Alongside the financial component, recipients are also awarded a medal and a diploma in recognition of their contributions. The prize is designed not only to honour exceptional scientific work but also to support the continued research efforts of the recipients. [8]
| Year | Recipient(s) |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Molly Stevens [10] [11] |
| 2022 | Uğur Şahin [12] |
| 2022 | Drew Weissman [3] |
| 2022 | Özlem Türeci [12] |
| 2022 | Katalin Karikó [13] |
| 2021 | Marco Prinz [14] [15] |
| 2020 | Merete Nordentoft, professor |
| 2020 | Preben Bo Mortensen |
| 2019 | Hans Bisgaard, professor |
| 2018 | Jørgen Kjems, professor |
| 2017 | Poul Nissen, professor |
| 2016 | Christian Torp-Pedersen, professor |
| 2015 | Jens Bukh, professor |
| 2014 | Søren Molin, professor |
| 2013 | Søren K. Moestrup |
| 2012 | Erik A. Richter |
| 2011 | Peter Lawætz Andersen |
| 2010 | Henrik Clausen |
| 2009 | Søren Nielsen |
| 2008 | Kristian Helin |
| 2007 | Marja Jäättelä |
| 2006 | Henning Beck-Nielsen |
| 2005 | Mads Melbye |
| 2004 | Peter Roepstorff og Matthias Mann |
| 2003 | Jiri Bartek og Jiri Lukas |
| 2002 | Jørgen Gliemann |
| 2001 | Thue W. Schwartz |
| 2000 | Peter Aaby |
| 1999 | Bengt Saltin |
| 1998 | Michael J. Mulvany og Christian Aalkjær |
| 1997 | Peter E. Nielsen |
| 1996 | Henrik Kehlet |
| 1995 | Niels Borregaard |
| 1994 | Hans Jørgen G. Gundersen |
| 1993 | Niels E. Skakkebæk |
| 1992 | Jan Fahrenkrug og Jens Juul Holst |
| 1991 | Peter Leth Jørgensen og Arvid Maunsbach |
| 1990 | Morten Simonsen |
| 1989 | Ove B. Norén og Hans G. Sjøstrøm |
| 1988 | Gunnar Bendixen |
| 1987 | Hans H. Ussing |
| 1986 | Hans Henrik Holm |
| 1985 | Hans Klenow |
| 1984 | Staffan Magnusson |
| 1983 | Christian Crone |
| 1982 | Jens F. Rehfeld |
| 1981 | Flemming Kissmeyer-Nielsen og Arne Svejgaard |
| 1980 | Bent Friis-Hansen |
| 1979 | Gerhard Salomon |
| 1978 | Margareta Mikkelsen og Villy Posborg Petersen |
| 1977 | Erik Amdrup |
| 1976 | Niels Tygstrup |
| 1975 | Georg Mandahl-Barth |
| 1974 | Michael Schwartz |
| 1973 | K.A. Marcker |
| 1972 | J.Chr. Siim |
| 1971 | Mogens Schou |
| 1970 | Poul Astrup |
| 1969 | Erik Zeuthen |
| 1968 | Niels A. Lassen |
| 1967 | Knud Lundbæk |
| 1966 | Jørn Hess Thaysen |
| 1965 | Jens Christian Skou |
| 1964 | Claus Brun |
| 1963 | Erik Warburg |
Joan Elaine Argetsinger Steitz is Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is known for her discoveries involving RNA, including ground-breaking insights into how ribosomes interact with messenger RNA by complementary base pairing and that introns are spliced by small nuclear ribonucleic proteins (snRNPs), which occur in eukaryotes. In September 2018, Steitz won the Lasker-Koshland Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science. The Lasker award is often referred to as the 'American Nobel' because 87 of the former recipients have gone on to win Nobel prizes.
Sir David Charles Baulcombe is a British plant scientist and geneticist. As of October 2024 he was Head of Group, Gene Expression, in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and the Edward Penley Abraham Royal Society Research Professor and Regius Professor of Botany Emeritus at Cambridge. He held the Regius botany chair in that department from 2007 to 2020.
Søren Brunak is a Danish biological and physical scientist working in bioinformatics, systems biology, and medical informatics. He is a professor of Disease Systems Biology at the University of Copenhagen and professor of bioinformatics at the Technical University of Denmark. As Research Director at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen Medical School, he leads a research effort where molecular-level systems biology data are combined with phenotypic data from the healthcare sector, such as electronic patient records, registry information, and biobank questionnaires. A major aim is to understand the network biology basis for time-ordered comorbidities and discriminate between treatment-related disease correlations and other comorbidities in disease trajectories. Søren Brunak also holds a position as a Medical Informatics Officer at Rigshospitalet, the Capital Region of Denmark.
Lynne Elizabeth Maquat is an American biochemist and molecular biologist whose research focuses on the cellular mechanisms of human disease. She is known for her work in describing the process of nonsense-mediated decay. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. She currently holds the J. Lowell Orbison Endowed Chair and is a professor of biochemistry and biophysics, pediatrics and oncology at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Dame Molly Morag Stevens is the John Black Professor of Bionanoscience at the University of Oxford's Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics. She is Deputy Director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery and a member of the Department for Engineering Science and the Institute for Biomedical Engineering.
Maiken Nedergaard is a Danish neuroscientist most well known for discovering the glymphatic system. She is a jointly appointed professor in the Departments of Neuroscience and Neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. She holds a part-time appointment in the Department of Neurosurgery within the University of Rochester Center for Translational Neuromedicine, where she is the principal investigator of the Division of Glial Disease and Therapeutics laboratory. She is also Professor of Glial Cell Biology at the University of Copenhagen, Center for Translational Neuromedicine.
Novo Holdings A/S is the Novo Nordisk Foundation's wholly owned holding company for Novo Nordisk A/S and Novozymes A/S. Novo Holdings A/S was established in 1999 and manages the Novo Nordisk Foundation's assets, which in 2023 was worth almost DKK 1,114 billion Danish Kroner. The company generated a total income and investment return of DKK 31 billion in 2023.
The Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) is an international enterprise foundation focusing on medical treatment and research.
Ole Kiehn is a Danish-Swedish neuroscientist. He is Professor of Integrative Neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and professor of neurophysiology at Karolinska Institute, Sweden.
Katalin "Kati" Karikó is a Hungarian-American biochemist who specializes in ribonucleic acid (RNA)-mediated mechanisms, particularly in vitro-transcribed messenger RNA (mRNA) for protein replacement therapy. Karikó laid the scientific groundwork for mRNA vaccines, overcoming major obstacles and skepticism in the scientific community. Karikó received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2023 for her work, along with American immunologist Drew Weissman.
Uğur Şahin is a German oncologist and immunologist. He is the co-founder and CEO of BioNTech, which developed one of the major vaccines against COVID-19. His main fields of research are cancer research and immunology.
Özlem Türeci is a German physician, scientist and entrepreneur. In 2008, she co-founded the biotechnology company BioNTech, which in 2020 developed the first messenger RNA-based vaccine approved for use against COVID-19. Türeci has served as BioNTech's chief medical officer since 2018. Since 2021, she has been Professor of Personalized Immunotherapy at the Helmholtz Institute for Translational Oncology (HI-TRON) and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Türeci and her spouse, Uğur Şahin, have won a number of awards.
Drew Weissman is an American physician and immunologist known for his contributions to RNA biology. Weissman is the inaugural Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research, director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation, and professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn).
Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen is a Danish businessman, CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation and former Executive Vice President of Research & Development, head of R&D and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk.
Pieter Rutter Cullis is a Canadian physicist and biochemist known for his contributions to the field of lipid nanoparticles (LNP). Cullis and co-workers have been responsible for fundamental advances in the development of nanomedicines employing lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology for cancer therapies, gene therapies and vaccines. This work has contributed to five drugs that have received clinical approval by the US Food and Drug Agency (FDA), the European Medicines Agency, and Health Canada.
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