Biogen buys in to molecular glues with Neomorph deal worth up to $1.45B

Biogen is the latest big biotech to make a play in protein degradation. The Massachusetts-based company has announced a deal to use Neomorph’s molecular glue degrader discovery platform to go after tough targets in Alzheimer’s and rare neurological and immunological diseases, the company announced in an Oct. 29 release.

Neomorph, a San Diego firm founded in 2020, will receive an unspecified upfront payment and is eligible to garner up to $1.45 billion in preclinical, clinical, regulatory, commercial and sales milestones. Neomorph will also have certain research costs reimbursed by Biogen and is eligible for future royalties in the mid-single digit to low double-digit percentage range, according to the release.

The partners will work together to develop small molecule molecular glue degraders for chosen targets. Biogen will then advance viable candidates through the clinic and to potential commercialization.

"As part of our modality agnostic research strategy, Biogen is committed to investing in new approaches to unlock biological targets that have remained difficult to reach," Biogen research head Jane Grogan, Ph.D., said in the release.

Biogen also recently shook up its C-suite, bringing Daniel Quirk, M.D., onboard as chief medical officer and head of medical affairs effective Oct. 28. Quirk most recently was a senior vice president at BMS.

Molecular glues are small molecules that stick to target proteins and change the way they interact with other proteins. This can include causing the target protein to be marked for destruction by ubiquitin ligase, part of the cell’s normal garbage-disposal pathway.

This deal isn’t Neomorph’s first rodeo with a large drugmaker. The glue-focused biotech also forged a discovery deal with Novo Nordisk in February, to the tune of up to $1.46 billion in milestone payments.

The biotech world has been stuck on molecular glues lately. Just a few days ago, Novartis bought an autoimmune molecular glue degrader from Monte Rosa Therapeutics for $150 million upfront. 

About two weeks before that, Pfizer paid $49 million upfront in a partnership and licensing pact with Triana Biomedicines to discover molecular glue degraders for cancer and other disease. 

And in August, Eisai signed a $1.5 billion biobucks pact with SEED Therapeutics to go after undisclosed neurodegeneration and oncology targets with molecular glues.