Jesper Lau

Jesper Lau, vice president of Novo Nordisk A/S, Copenhagen, Denmark. Dr. Jesper Lau studied biology and chemistry at University of Southern Denmark. After receiving his Ph.D. degree in 1990 and a research visit stay at Dr. B. Trost’s laboratory in Standford University (U.S.A.), he joined Novo Nordisk. In 1995 he became responsible for implementing combinatorial chemistry strategy and in 2002 he established a new department to improve therapeutic properties of peptides and proteins. Dr. Lau has a broad experience in both small molecule and protein drug discovery. He was instrumental to the successful development of once weekly glucagon-like peptide-1 and is the first inventor of semaglutide.