GSK has signed a research alliance with Danish biotech start-up Muna Therapeutics focused on novel drug targets for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
Through the deal, the partners will explore insights from Muna’s MiND-MAP platform, which applies spatial transcriptomics to brain samples from Alzheimer’s disease patients, cognitively resilient individuals, healthy controls, and centenarians with and without cognitive impairment. Candidate drug targets will be validated using Muna’s suite of humanized cell and animal models, supported by insights from patient tissue and biofluid samples.
Muna, which launched in 2021, is advancing first-in-class oral small molecule programs focused on resolving neuroinflammation and normalizing microglia function in patients with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative disorders.
Per the deal, Muna will receive an upfront payment from GSK of 35.3 million (€33.5 million). In addition, Muna will be eligible to receive up to $147.5 million (€140 million) per target in milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties on net sales of products.
It's been a busy deal-making week for GSK. The drugmaker just paid $46 million upfront in a deal with biotech start-up Rgenta Therapeutics to develop novel RNA-targeted oral small molecule splice modulators for multiple disease areas including oncology. The day prior, GSK announced a licensing deal with China-based DualityBio for a potential best-in-class ADC candidate currently targeting GI cancer.