On Jun. 22, 1981, ZymoGenetics was founded by University of Washington professors Earl Davie and Benjamin Hall, and the late Nobel award winning University of British Columbia professor Michael Smith. Beginning in 1988, Zymo served as the primary U.S. discovery arm of Novo Nordisk, contributing to the development of several of Novo Nordisk’s current marketed products and pipeline candidates.

In 2000, the company was spun off as a public company. Following Zymo’s IPO in 2002, Novo Nordisk held 39% of ZymoGenetic’s capital stock. In 2010, Bristol-Myers Squibb acquired ZymoGenetics after entering into a strategic collaboration to co-develop PEG-Interferon lambda.