Eli Lilly and Sangamo Therapeutics have entered into a licensing agreement worth over $1.4bn to deliver genomic medicines for central nervous system (CNS) diseases.
The deal gives Lilly an exclusive worldwide licence to use Sangamo’s neurotropic adeno-associated virus capsid for one initial target, and the company also has the option to add another four.
CNS diseases are a group of conditions that affect the brain or spinal cord. They include neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis, as well as infections and tumours.
Treating CNS diseases remains extremely challenging, and the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is considered to be a significant obstacle in the development of treatments due to the restriction it places on drug delivery.
Sangamo’s STAC-BBB has already demonstrated potent blood-brain barrier penetration and neuronal transduction in nonhuman primates, according to the genomic medicine company.
The agreement will see Sangamo complete a technology transfer related to the STAC-BBB capsid. Lilly will then take on responsibility for all research, preclinical and clinical development, regulatory interactions, manufacturing and global commercialisation of any products resulting from the collaboration.
In exchange, Sangamo will receive $18m upfront and will be eligible for up to $1.4bn in additional licensed target fees and milestone payments across the five potential neurology disease targets, as well as tiered royalties on future net sales.
“We believe STAC-BBB… has the potential to play an important role in the treatment landscape by addressing long standing challenges associated with delivering therapies to the CNS,” said Sangamo’s chief executive officer, Sandy Macrae.
“We are pleased to be sharing STAC-BBB with Lilly to advance potential treatments for neurological diseases with significant unmet medical needs,” Macrae added.
The deal comes just three months after Lilly and Alchemab Therapeutics partnered to develop new therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a rare neurodegenerative disease for which there is no known cure.
The collaboration agreement centres around Alchemab’s antibody discovery platform, which uses patient samples from those with unusually slow rates of disease progression to identify antibodies associated with resilience.
Alchemab has already acquired hundreds of ALS samples, and both companies will work together to discover, develop and commercialise up to five novel therapeutics using the platform.