Partnership focuses on platform that enables drugs to cross the blood-brain barrier without compromising its protective qualities.
South Korean biotech ABL Bio has entered a licensing agreement with pharma giant GSK to develop new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases based on its bispecific antibody technology. The collaboration centers around ABL Bio’s proprietary Grabody-B platform, which is designed to address a key challenge in neurological drug development: the blood-brain barrier.
The BBB protects the brain from potentially harmful substances but also significantly limits the delivery of therapeutic agents. Grabody-B tackles this issue by targeting the insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor, enabling the efficient passage of therapeutic molecules across the blood-brain barrier without compromising its essential protective role. The company says this enables a wide range of drug modalities, including antibodies, polynucleotides and oligonucleotides such as siRNA, to be “shuttled” across the BBB and delivered to the brain.
By allowing large therapeutic molecules, traditionally hindered by the blood-brain barrier, to effectively reach their targets in the brain, Grabody-B aims to broaden the range of potential treatments for central nervous system diseases, while also addressing a major bottleneck in drug development for these conditions.
“Given the increasing number of patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, we hope this partnership will accelerate the development of innovative treatments and bring renewed hope to patients worldwide,” said ABL Bio CEO Sang Hoon Lee.
As part of the collaboration, ABL Bio will transfer its Grabody-B technology and associated expertise to GSK. From that point, GSK will take full responsibility for the preclinical and clinical development, as well as for manufacturing and commercializing the resulting therapies.
“There is a critical need for new therapeutics to treat neurodegenerative brain diseases, which are rapidly increasing in prevalence due to the aging of the population,” said GSK’s head of research technologies Christopher Austin. “Many of the most promising new therapies are antibodies, which cannot efficiently reach the brain without a shuttle to get them across the BBB. This agreement reflects our commitment to innovative platform technologies to overcome the BBB and thus open entirely new opportunities for treating these devastating diseases, an important component of our emerging pipeline.”
Under the terms of the agreement, ABL Bio will receive an initial payment of approximately $50 million, with the total upfront and near-term payments reaching close to $100 million. Additionally, the company stands to earn up to around $2.5 billion in milestone payments spanning multiple therapeutic programs. ABL Bio will also receive tiered royalties based on net sales of any successfully commercialized products stemming from the partnership.
