Team Novo Nordisk, the all-diabetes pro-cycling team, released its lineup for the 2023 season Monday.
The 18-man roster includes notable names like Andrea Peron, Charles Planet and David Lozano as well as younger talent like Matyas Kopecky and Filippo Ridolfo.
Heading into its 16th season, Team Novo Nordisk is seeking to build on the momentum it achieved in 2022 competing in the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) pro ranks.
“What pleased me the most this year was the team spirit and the togetherness, after such a difficult 2021 we could be forgiven for letting our heads drop, but we channeled that energy and used it as motivation. Now we approach 2023 with the same attitude and fundamentally the same team,” Vassili Davidenko, general manager of Team Novo Nordisk, said in a statement.
Team Novo Nordisk founder and CEO Phil Southerland echoed Davidenko’s comments about the success the group accomplished in 2022, noting that Peron earned his first career victory and that “diabetes didn’t stop him.”
Originally founded in 2005 as Team Type 1, Novo Nordisk became the team’s sponsor in 2012 based around a shared vision to “inspire, educate, and empower people around the world affected by diabetes and promote a healthy and active lifestyle.” The team’s tagline is “Racing to Drive Change in Diabetes.”
According to the World Health Organization, approximately 422 million people have diabetes, with most living in low- and middle-income countries.
In the U.S., diabetes advocacy groups have been actively promoting the interests of this sizable patient population in light of pending policy changes at the federal level.
Over the summer, the Diabetes Leadership Council and the Diabetes Patient Advocacy Coalition filed suit in U.S. District Court to challenge a federal rule codifying copay accumulator adjustment, a payer tactic that blocks copay discounts from counting toward patients’ deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums.
Additionally, diabetes groups highlighted the concerns of how the overturning of Roe v. Wade would extend to affecting patients’ access to life-saving medical options.
For its part, Novo Nordisk has kept busy in the closing months of 2022. The Danish drugmaker entered into an exclusive development and license agreement for $70 million with Ventus Therapeutics for its NLRP3 inhibitor program and said it would acquire Forma Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech focused on addressing rare blood disorders, for $1.1 billion.
