Amgen, Novartis To Collaborate On Alzheimer’s Disease And Migraine Programs

Novartis’ experimental compound CNP520, now in early Phase I/IIa studies, will be the lead BACE inhibitor molecule.

“The collaboration accelerates Amgen’s potential entry into Alzheimer’s disease”, Amgen said in a news release.

“However, we believe BACE inhibition is a very interesting target and should be combined with beta-amyloid antibodies together, and many companies are going after BACE in phase one/two, including Biogen (Eisai data spring ’16), Lilly (phase two), Merck (NYSE:MRK) (and) Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ)”.

All these deals center on so-called BACE inhibitors, a hot new class of drugs the industry hopes could prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s by preventing the buildup of a protein known as amyloid in the brain, thought to be the main cause of the degenerative neurological disease.

In addition to its clinical trials, Novartis has partnered with the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in a study that would test the effectiveness of its Alzheimer’s drugs on more than 1,300 healthy adults who are at genetic risk to develop the disease. The company also gained access to an experimental neuropathic pain drug earlier this year when the company acquired US Australian biotech firm Spinifex Pharmaceuticals which was seen as a huge positive by analysts on the street. AMG 334 is a fully human monoclonal antibody under investigation for the prevention of migraine. AMG 334 is now under evaluation in several large global, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials to assess its safety and efficacy in migraine prevention. Amgen has been moving AMG 334 along in Phase III and AMG 301 in Phase I in what is a crowded field. The company will also pay the majority of research-and-development costs for the program for an agreed-upon period, after which the parties would split costs and profit equally.

The operate with You can introduce.S. drugmaker Amgen on Alzheimer’s will be devoted to getting a treatment regimen which could be given via mouth, instead of just one of the infusion, across the creation of self proclaimed BACE inhibitor drug use.

Novartis will fund disproportional migraine R&D expenses for a period and will pay Amgen double-digit percentage royalties on sales. For the compounds in the migraine field, Novartis receives global co-development rights and commercial rights outside the U.S., Canada and Japan to the investigative molecules in Amgen’s migraine portfolio.

But it also has an important presence in multiple sclerosis (MS) with Gilenya and the company last month moved to expand its MS business by buying the remaining rights to ofatumumab from GlaxoSmithKline.