Voyager and AbbVie Forge Another Neurodegenerative Therapy Collaboration Worth More Than $1 Billion
Biospace.com | February 22, 2019
Voyager Therapeutics struck a deal with Illinois-based AbbVie to develop and commercialize vectorized antibodies directed at pathological species of alpha-synuclein for the potential treatment of Parkinson's disease and other diseases characterized by the abnormal accumulation of misfolded alpha-synuclein protein. A hallmark of Parkinson's disease is the accumulation of misfolded alpha-synuclein that can eventually lead to the formation of protein deposits and progressive neurodegeneration. For years, there have been limitations to delivering effective biologic therapies for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s due to the difficulties of crossing the blood-brain barrier. Voyager’s vectorized antibody platform aims to circumvent the limitation of the failures to cross the blood-brain barrier. The platform uses a one-time intravenous treatment of the genes that encode for the production of therapeutic antibodies using the company’s adeno-associated virus capsids. The company said this approach has the potential for higher levels of therapeutic antibodies in the brain compared with current systemic administration of antibodies.