Takeda, Wave Life Sciences in Oligonucleotide Drug Pact

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company has formed a pact and multi-program option agreement with Wave Life Sciences, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-headquartered biopharmaceutical company, to develop antisense oligonucleotides for genetically defined neurological diseases.

The first component of the collaboration will focus on programs targeting Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (i.e., Lou Gehrig’s disease), frontotemporal dementia, and spinocerebellar ataxia Type III. Wave is developing oligonucleotide therapeutics to target diseases that it says have been difficult to treat with small molecules or biologics. Wave’s molecules are designed to reduce the expression of disease-promoting proteins or to transform the production of dysfunctional mutant proteins into the production of functional proteins with the potential of treating the targeted disease. The first component of this collaboration will investigate the potential four therapies with the option to co-develop and co-commercialize after demonstration of clinical proof of mechanism.

The second component of the collaboration provides Takeda with the rights to exclusively license multiple preclinical programs targeting other neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. At any one time during a four-year term, the companies may collaborate on up to six preclinical programs.

Takeda also recently signed collaboration agreements with Mindstrong Health, a start-up company offering care providers a mobile platform to address diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders, and Denali Therapeutics, a San Francisco, California-headquartered biopharmaceutical company developing drugs for treating neurodegenerative diseases.

Source: Takeda Pharmaceutical Industries

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