AbbVie Splashes $1.4 Billion to Acquire Aliada, Blood-Brain Barrier Technology Becomes a Focus for Pharmaceutical Giants!

On October 28, 2024, AbbVie, the world's leading pharmaceutical company, announced a major transaction to acquire all outstanding shares of Aliada for $1.4 billion in cash. Aliada's core product is an anti-amyloid beta antibody, which has great potential in treating central nervous system (CNS) diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). The core purpose of AbbVie's acquisition is to leverage Aliada's knowledge of novel blood-brain barrier (BBB) crossing technology to further explore and develop treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.

In recent years, large biotech deals that breach the blood-brain barrier have received a lot of attention and demonstration in molecules in various drug forms. For example, in August 2024, Genentech announced a major deal in which they paid $50 million upfront, short-term milestone payments, and potential milestone payments totaling up to $1.9 billion, Acquired rights to the zinc finger repressor of the Tau gene and to the AAV capsid STacc-BBB unique to Sangamo Therapeutics. Not only did this AAV capsid exhibit a strong ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, but STacc-BBB was able to drive high levels of transgene expression in a wide range of central nervous system tissues.

In the field of small molecule drugs, in May 2023, Roche introduced a global interest in Zanron's oral small molecule HER2 inhibitor ZN-A-1041 with a "$70 million upfront payment + $610 million potential milestone." This small molecule drug is characterized by its ability to effectively penetrate the blood-brain barrier and is considered by the market as potentially the most effective innovative drug for the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer brain metastases.

These intensive commercial development (BD) activities are proving that drug development with a research direction of breaking the blood-brain barrier has great potential and prospects. However, due to the high threshold for screening brain metastasis models, the mismatch of CDMO industrial chain, and the difficulty of large-molecule drugs in domestic research and development to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, the number of pharmaceutical companies in China is relatively small. From the perspective of the innovative drug companies that have been listed, Beigene and Dizhe Pharmaceutical are representative enterprises in this field.

Due to the high threshold for developing innovative pipeline assets that can penetrate the blood-brain barrier, this may determine that there are not many options for investors in this area in the future. However, there is also the benefit that the chances of a company making a bet and reaping a blockbuster commercial development deal will increase dramatically. Clearly, this is a logical investment idea and an important area that innovative drug investors cannot ignore.