Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ALXN) announced a pair of deals on Monday, including a deal with Complement Pharma (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) to develop a preclinical complement 6 (C6) inhibitor for neurodegenerative diseases. The biotech also divested ALXN1101 to a newly formed subsidiary of BridgeBio Pharma LLC (Palo Alto, Calif.).
Alexion and Complement will co-develop Complement's CP010, a humanized mAb C6 complement inhibitor, through Phase Ib development. Complement will be eligible for €14 million ($16.5 million) in milestones, and Alexion will have an option to acquire the neurodegenerative disease company at any time while the collaboration is active. Complement will oversee preclinical and Phase I trials.
BridgeBio's subsidiary Origin Biosciences Inc. gained exclusive, global rights to ALXN1101, a cyclic pyranopterin monophosphate replacement therapy. Origin launched with an undisclosed amount of capital, which BridgeBio said would be “sufficient” to advance the candidate through commercial launch. Alexion is eligible for development and sales milestones. The partners did not disclose details.
Last July, Alexion said it planned to out-license the compound after it restructured its pipeline to focus on its core complement inhibitor franchise and approved rare disease products (see BioCentury, April 20).
The Escherichia coli-derived cPMP is in development to treat molybdenum cofactor deficiency (MoCD) type A, for which it has breakthrough therapy status in the U.S. According to ClinicalTrials.gov, ALXN1101 is in a Phase II/III trial for newly diagnosed MoCD type A and a Phase II trial for pediatric MoCD type A patients. Alexion spokesperson Megan Goulart said the company paused all development of ALXN1101, including enrollment in these trials, when it announced its restructured pipeline last year.
Alexion gained rights to the ALXN1101 program from Orphatec Pharmaceuticals GmbH (Niederkassel, Germany) in 2011 (see BioCentury, Feb. 14, 2011).
Alexion was off $1.63 to $116.70 on Monday.
BridgeBio in-licenses preclinical and clinical stage assets from academia and pharma and houses them in individual subsidiaries (see BioCentury, Sept. 15, 2017).