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AbbVie announced on Dec. 11, 2024 that its acquisition of Aliada Therapeutics,a biotechnology company working to solve challenges in central nervous system (CNS) drug development, has been completed. Announced in October 2024, the acquisition strengthens AbbVie’s neuroscience pipeline and includes Aliada’s anti-pyroglutamate amyloid beta (3pE-Aβ) antibody, ALIA-1758, for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
"Alzheimer's disease poses a significant public health challenge, impacting millions worldwide and is becoming more prevalent as populations age," said Dawn Carlson, MD, vice-president, neuroscience development at AbbVie, in a press release (1). "With the acquisition now complete, we look forward to advancing potentially disease-modifying therapies such as ALIA-1758 for Alzheimer's disease and bolstering our neuroscience discovery and development efforts by leveraging Aliada's novel CNS drug delivery platform."
ALIA-1758, which is currently in a Phase I clinical trial, uses a novel blood-brain barrier (BBB)-crossing technology, Modular Delivery (MODEL) platform, that enhances delivery of targeted drugs into the CNS. MODEL targets transferrin (TfR) and CD98 receptors to deliver different types of biological cargoes into the brain. ALIA-1758 uses TfR to transport a 3pE-Aβ antibody across the BBB. This enables the degradation and elimination of amyloid beta plaques, according to the company.
"Neuroscience is one of our key growth areas and we are committed to driving innovation in this field to address critical unmet needs for patients living with seriously debilitating neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's disease," said Roopal Thakkar, MD, executive vice-president, research and development, and chief scientific officer, AbbVie, in the October 2024 press release (2). "This acquisition immediately positions us to advance ALIA-1758, a potentially best-in-class disease-modifying therapy for Alzheimer's disease. In addition, Aliada's novel BBB-crossing technology strengthens our R&D capabilities to accelerate the development of next-generation therapies for neurological disorders and other diseases where enhanced delivery of therapeutics into the CNS is beneficial."
"We are pleased to announce the acquisition of Aliada by AbbVie and are excited about AbbVie's commitment to bringing ALIA-1758 to patients with Alzheimer's disease. Our proprietary MODEL platform has enabled the development of ALIA-1758, a promising step forward in brain delivery of an anti-amyloid antibody therapy," said Michael Ryan, MD, chief medical officer at Aliada Therapeutics, in the October release. "Many promising CNS-targeted therapies fail to reach late-stage trials due to their inability to cross the blood-brain barrier. Our MODEL platform addresses this challenge directly, efficiently delivering targeted drugs and potentially transforming how we treat neurological diseases."
According to the October press release, the agreement hasAbbVie gaining all outstanding Aliada equity for $1.4 billion in cash.
This isn’t the only acquisition this year for AbbVie. The company also added to its neurological pipeline in August 2024 with the acquisition of Cerevel Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in neuroscience diseases (3). The company also expanded its anti-inflammatory disease pipeline with the acquisition of Celsius Therapeutics in June of 2024 (4).
References
AbbVie. AbbVie Completes Acquisition of Aliada Therapeutics. Press Release. Dec. 11, 2024.
AbbVie. AbbVie to Acquire Aliada Therapeutics, Strengthening Focus in Alzheimer's Disease and Neuroscience Pipeline. Press Release. Oct. 28, 2024.
AbbVie. AbbVie Completes Acquisition of Cerevel Therapeutics. Press Release. Aug. 1, 2024.
AbbVie. AbbVie Acquires Celsius Therapeutics. Press Release. June 27, 2024.