AbbVie Ends An Alzheimer's Immunotherapy Collaboration with Alector

AbbVie has decided to terminate a collaboration focused on the development of Alzheimer's disease treatment AL003, Alector disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission a few days ago.

As early as 2017, AbbVie entered into a strategic cooperation with Alector, and will work with Alector to develop new drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. According to the agreement, the two parties will develop antibody drugs around a specific target, and AbbVie has the right to obtain the global development and commercial rights of 2 drugs targeting this target. Alector is responsible for the exploratory research, drug discovery and development of the project through to the completion of the proof-of-concept study. If AbbVie exercises its option, it will be responsible for late-stage development and commercialization of the drug. The two parties will share research costs and share profits from global sales of the drug. As part of the deal, AbbVie paid an upfront payment of $205 million.

Late last year, Alector provided phase 1 data on one of its drug candidates, AL003, in healthy volunteers, and early evidence showed that the drug candidate was well tolerated at a monthly intravenous dose of 15 mg/kg in combination with two blood The transmembrane receptor CD33 binds to and CNS compartments.

Based on these data, Alector, who is responsible for designing and executing the Phase 1 and Phase 2 studies, has a plan to move into the next phase of development in the second half of 2022.

However, in May of this year, Alector said it was reviewing with AbbVie the next steps for the AL003 program for CD33. The review has now concluded that AbbVie terminated the CD33 collaboration and Alector has removed AL003 from its pipeline.

Regarding the reasons for terminating the AL003 partnership, Alector said in a securities filing that AbbVie provided written notice on June 30 of its decision to terminate the program, but did not provide further details.

Additionally, Alector noted that the collaboration with AbbVie on AL002 continues. AL002, a TREM2-targeting drug candidate, is being investigated in the Phase II INVOKE-2 study to see if it can slow disease progression in patients with early-stage Alzheimer's disease.