Novartis has inked a deal with Sironax that gives the pharma the exclusive option to acquire the biotech’s blood-brain barrier crossing technology after a trial period.
If Novartis decides to buy the platform, the Swiss pharma will have full global rights to the Sironax science, giving the biotech the chance to make up to $175 million in upfront and near-term payments, according to a July 9 release.
Under the deal terms, the biotech will be able to keep developing certain unnamed pipeline programs that use the brain delivery module platform, which is designed to improve drug delivery to the brain across several modalities.
Currently, the biotech’s most advanced assets are two RIPK1 inhibitors, dubbed SIR9900 and SIR2446, in neurodegenerative diseases and immune/inflammatory diseases, respectively. The candidates are both in phase 1a testing, according to Sironax’s website.
BeiGene co-founder Xiaodong Wang helped launch the venture back in 2018, leading the charge to develop treatments for age-related diseases. In 2022, Sironax raised $200 million in series B money, with investor participation from F-Prime Capital and ARCH Ventures, among others.
The biotech, which has locations in both the U.S. and China, has built its strategy around three key drivers of aging: dysregulated cell death, uncontrolled inflammation and disrupted energy homeostasis.
Drug developers have been chasing a technology that boosts delivery across the blood-brain barrier for years. The barrier—also known as BBB—protects the inner surfaces of the blood vessels inside the brain and controls how certain chemical molecules go into and out of the brain.
This can make it challenging to deliver therapeutics across the barrier. Biopharmas have tried for decades to crack the code to successfully penetrate the BBB for CNS diseases.
“Effectively delivering therapeutics across the blood-brain barrier remains one of the most important challenges in drug discovery," Robert Baloh, M.D., Ph.D., global head of neuroscience for Novartis’ Biomedical Research Institute, said in the release. "We're excited to enter into this agreement with Sironax to fully explore the promise of the BDM platform, leveraging our deep expertise and capabilities in neuroscience to bring forward next-generation therapies for patients in need."
Neuroscience is one of Novartis’ four therapeutic areas of focus, alongside oncology, immunology and cardiovascular, renal and metabolic conditions.