Alchemab gilds the Lilly with lucrative ALS alliance
The alliance brings a significant, although undisclosed, payback to the Cambridge and London based Alchemab.
Alchemab will collaborate with Lilly to discover, develop and commercialise up to five novel therapeutics. It will receive an undisclosed upfront payment and is eligible to receive discovery, development and commercialisation milestone payments, plus royalties.
Alchemab’s technology platform uses patient samples from individuals with unusually slow rates of disease progression to identify antibodies associated with resilience.
The company believes these antibodies, which are not found in disease progressors, could present therapeutic opportunities.
Alchemab has acquired hundreds of ALS samples and this collaboration will leverage Alchemab’s technology to identify antibodies associated with resilience in ALS patient samples and advance the most promising candidates.
Basically, Alchemab identifies and develops naturally occurring therapeutic antibodies from resilient individuals.
CEO Jane Osbourn says: “We have shown that our novel, differentiated antibody discovery platform can lead to insights into how an individual’s immune response can generate potent, selective, and unique antibodies with therapeutic potential.
“Guided by patients’ biological response to disease, Alchemab’s platform yields both novel targets and potential therapies in one process. ALS is a devastating disease and an area of significant unmet medical need.
“Our collaboration with Lilly enables us to apply our novel approach to a hugely important disease in partnership with one of the most respected names in pharma. We are looking forward to working together to discover and develop novel targets and therapies for ALS patients.”
ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a rare and terminal neurodegenerative disease for which there is no known cure. Early symptoms of ALS include stiff muscles, muscle twitches, gradual increasing weakness, and muscle wasting that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles, leading to difficulties in speaking, swallowing, walking, and breathing.
The average survival from onset to death is two to four years, though this can vary, and about 10 per cent of those affected survive longer than 10 years.
Alchemab was founded in 2019 with seed funding from SV Health Investors, DCVC Bio and the Dementia Discovery Fund and has raised more than $80 million to date from a blue chip syndicate of specialist investors which also includes RA Capital, Lightstone Ventures and Camford Capital.
