AbbVie has agreed to pay $1.4 billion to buy Aliada Therapeutics. The acquisition will give AbbVie control of an Alzheimer’s disease drug candidate Aliada in-licensed from Johnson & Johnson to try to improve on the first generation of anti-amyloid-beta antibodies.
Aliada is developing an antibody that binds to pyroglutamate amyloid beta, a form of the peptide found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. Other molecules, notably Eli Lilly’s Kisunla, target pyroglutamate amyloid beta, but Aliada’s ALIA-1758 has a twist that sets it apart. The candidate uses a mechanism that actively transports molecules across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to maximize uptake in target tissues.
Boston-based Aliada is in the early days of trying to validate that hypothesis in humans, having started a phase 1 trial in healthy volunteers in May. But AbbVie has already seen enough to place a $1.4 billion valuation on ALIA-1758 and the delivery platform that spawned the program.
The deal comes months after AbbVie axed its internal anti-amyloid-beta antibody ABBV-916 after seeing interim phase 2 data. The data suggested ABBV-916 has a similar safety and efficacy profile to approved Alzheimer’s drugs, and the Big Pharma decided against arriving late to market with an undifferentiated candidate. In ALIA-1758, the company has secured a molecule it believes may be best-in-class.
ALIA-1758 is the product of work to try to hijack mechanisms that shuttle large molecules across the BBB without triggering the neurotoxic effects associated with some early attempts. J&J funded research into the platform but allowed Aliada to take the science forward. After quietly working to get ALIA-1758 into the clinic for the past few years, Aliada has secured an early exit for its investors.
The value of the deal for AbbVie extends beyond ALIA-1758. Neuroscience is a key therapeutic area for AbbVie, and the BBB is a potential barrier to the effective treatment of many conditions that could be of interest to the drugmaker. Adding Aliada’s Modular Delivery platform to its toolkit will allow AbbVie to explore the use of the technology more broadly.
AbbVie’s rivals in Alzheimer’s and other neuroscience indications have access to other BBB technologies. Eli Lilly secured access to Qinotto’s platform earlier this month. Eisai struck a deal to work on a candidate that uses BioArctic BrainTransporter technology earlier this year, while Roche has developed the Brainshuttle technology.