AbbVie to buy Alzheimer's therapy developer Aliada for US$1.4 billion

ABBVIE will buy Aliada Therapeutics for US$1.4 billion in cash, it said on Monday (Oct 28), gaining access to the privately held therapy developer’s Alzheimer’s disease candidate as the US drugmaker increases its neuroscience focus.

Faced with slowing demand for Humira following the launch of biosimilar versions in the US, AbbVie this year bought neuroscience drug developer Cerevel Therapeutics and cancer drug developer ImmunoGen in deals worth around US$19 billion in total.

Boston-based Aliada is developing ALIA-1758, an antibody for the Alzheimer’s disease in early-stage development, which AbbVie said could be a potential best-in-class therapy.

ALIA-1758 utilises a protein called transferrin in the blood that carries iron to transport an antibody to degrade and eliminate amyloid beta plaques, which are protein deposits in the brain that are a sign of Alzheimer’s.

“Many promising CNS-targeted therapies fail to reach late-stage trials due to their inability to cross the blood-brain barrier,” Aliada chief medical officer Michael Ryan said, referring to the central nervous system treatments.

“Our (drug delivery) platform addresses this challenge directly, efficiently delivering targeted drugs and potentially transforming how we treat neurological diseases.”

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The number of people living with Alzheimer’s is projected to double from 6.9 million in 2020 to nearly 14 million people by 2060, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.

The Aliada deal is expected to close by the end of this year.

AbbVie’s neuroscience therapies, which include Botox for migraines and bipolar disorder drug Vraylar, brought in US$4.13 billion in sales in the first half of 2024, a 15.3 per cent jump from the same period a year earlier. Meanwhile, Humira sales dropped 32.7 per cent during the period. REUTERS