Neurimmune to regain global rights to brain amyloid depleter for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease

Neurimmune aims to develop aducanumab-based therapeutics that can be subcutaneously administered

Neurimmune announced today that it regained global rights to aducanumab, a recombinant human antibody developed to deplete brain amyloid. Aducanumab was granted FDA accelerated approval for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

Neurimmune licensed its antibody aducanumab for the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease to Biogen in 2007 and will hold global rights to the program following Biogen’s termination of the collaboration and license agreement. In addition to rights to an extensive IP portfolio relating to the antibody, Neurimmune is obtaining a detailed clinical data package, GMP supplies and manufacturing technology relating to aducanumab.

Alzheimer’s disease – the leading cause of dementia in elderly people – is characterized by a decades-long build-up in the brain of a protein known as amyloid. Aducanumab is the first of a class of three novel antibodies to substantially deplete brain amyloid in clinical trials. This depletion translated to a slowing of clinical decline over time.

“The depletion of brain amyloid is a validated therapeutic target for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Christoph Hock, Chief Medical Officer of Neurimmune. “Our initial data and recent results from other late-stage clinical trials confirmed that substantial depletion of brain amyloid slows the progression of the disease. Additional data indicating that aducanumab treatment also leads to a reduction of tau pathology is in our view encouraging further evidence of a disease-modifying effect.”

Brain amyloid can cause subtle effects on a cellular level leading to damage of neuronal transport systems, abnormally phosphorylated tau and the formation of neurofibrillary tangles consisting of abnormally phosphorylated tau proteins. Clinical trials showed that, besides amyloid depletion, effective doses of aducanumab reduced pathologic tau in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, paralleled by reduced cognitive decline. Thus, both key pathologies of Alzheimer’s disease are addressed during treatment.

“We are excited to lead the future development of aducanumab,” commented Fabian Buller, Chief Business Officer of Neurimmune. “We aim to develop aducanumab-based therapeutics for early intervention with a focus on subcutaneous administrations, and will provide updates on our progress in due course.”