UPDATE 1-Novo Nordisk owner to invest $200 million in quantum computing startups

(Adds interview quotes in final section)

By Martin Coulter

LONDON, May 1 (Reuters) - Novo Holdings, the controlling shareholder of Danish obesity drugmaker Novo Nordisk, said on Wednesday it planned to invest around $200 million in quantum computing startups.

The company, the investment arm of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, has 77% of voting shares in Novo Nordisk, which is known for producing blockbuster obesity drug Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic.

CONTEXT

Academics and industry analysts say quantum computing may prove to be among the most transformational technological developments of the 21st century.

Tech companies and governments alike have been working to create machines that take advantage of quantum mechanics, capable of making scientific calculations that would otherwise take most computers millions of years.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

Announcing the news on Wednesday, Novo Holdings said it wanted to help build an ecosystem of quantum computing startups, with a particular focus on life sciences companies based in Nordic countries.

By applying the technology to the development of pharmaceuticals and other life sciences, quantum computing companies could significantly speed up the drug discovery process.

KEY QUOTE

"There are some obvious applications, such as drug discovery, building quantum models of proteins and seeing how they interact with molecules," Soren Moller, managing partner of seed investments at Novo Holdings, told Reuters in an interview.

"But you can use quantum across the life sciences, making sense of complex datasets or monitoring complex biological systems."

He added: "This technology will be transformational for life sciences, but we are at the very early stages. We don't have quantum computers at the moment, so we believe this is the right time to lean forward and make these investments. (Reporting by Martin Coulter in London Editing by Matthew Lewis and Barbara Lewis)