Neurimmune focusing on the development of immunotherapeutics for the treatment and prevention of human disorders with high unmet medical needs, announced today that it has raised $150 million to fund its growth strategy. The financing will accelerate the development of Neurimmune's human antibody pipeline through clinical proof of concept.
Neurimmune has received a one-time $150 million payment from its collaboration partner Biogen – a biotech company which discover, develops and delivers innovative therapies for people living with serious neurological and neurodegenerative diseases – in exchange for a 15% reduction in the previously negotiated royalty rates on aducanumab. Moreover, Neurimmune will receive an additional one-time $50 million payment subject to Biogen's exercise of an option for an additional 5% royalty buy-down.
Neurimmune licensed the worldwide rights to aducanumab to Biogen in 2007, entering a collaboration on Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.
“This amended agreement with Neurimmune improves aducanumab’s potential value to Biogen as we pursue our strategic goal of leadership in Alzheimer’s disease,” said Michel Vounatsos, CEO of Biogen. “We are pleased with our ongoing collaboration with Neurimmune in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative disorders.”
While Neurimmune is dedicated achieving more growth with the newly raised funds, Biogen seeks to increase profit potential on investigational alzheimer’s disease treatment on Aducanumab, thanks to the agreement. The Alzheimers therapy has recently delivered promising results in a Phase 1b study. A Phase 3 study with a total of 2,700 subjects is currently being conducted.
About Aducanumab
Aducanumab (BIIB037) is an investigational compound being developed for the treatment of early Alzheimer’s disease. Aducanumab is a human recombinant monoclonal antibody (mAb) derived from a de-identified library of B cells collected from healthy elderly subjects with no signs of cognitive impairment or cognitively impaired elderly subjects with unusually slow cognitive decline using Neurimmune’s technology platform called Reverse Translational Medicine (RTM). Biogen licensed aducanumab from Neurimmune under a collaborative development and license agreement.
Aducanumab is thought to target aggregated forms of beta amyloid including soluble oligomers and insoluble fibrils which can form into amyloid plaque in the brain of Alzheimer’s disease patients. Based on pre-clinical and Phase 1b data to date, treatment with aducanumab has been shown to reduce amyloid plaque levels.
In August 2016 aducanumab was accepted into the European Medicines Agency’s PRIME program. In September 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration accepted aducanumab into its Fast Track program and in April 2017 aducanumab was accepted into the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s (MHLW) Sakigake Designation System.
Biogen discovers, develops and delivers worldwide innovative therapies for people living with serious neurological and neurodegenerative diseases.
Picture: Neurimmune website
(Press release/ran)
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