Jesper Lau
Jesper Lau (JL) started with Novo Nordisk as bench chemists in 1990 working with small molecules but was quickly promoted to project manager for a specific project aiming to discover small molecule GLP-1 agonists as well as glugacon receptor antagonists. From 2003 JL was leading a new organization composed of organic chemists with experience from tradition medicinal chemistry that were transitioning into the untouched field of peptide and protein engineering aiming to build new capabilities on how to turn unstable peptides and proteins into effective and safe pharmaceuticals with long duration of action. Semaglutide was invented as the first once weekly GLP-1 based on human GLP-1 which has today inspired many others to follow.