Eli Lilly has signed a heavily backloaded agreement to license a gamma-secretase modulator treatment for Alzheimer's disease from AlzeCure Pharma for up to $1 billion biobucks.
Lilly is obtaining the rights to the small-molecule treatment for $10 million upfront, according to a June 9 release. The treatment aims to reduce the production of the harmful amyloid-beta protein Aβ42.
Aβ42 forms the building blocks of amyloid plaques found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease. In addition to reducing the production of Aβ42, ACD860 is designed to increase benign proteins such as Aβ37 and Aβ38, which may also reduce Aβ42 levels and harmful plaque buildup in the brain.
The benefits of the drug may extend beyond treating Alzheimer's disease, AlzeCure CEO Martin Jönsson said in a statement. “In the long term, these compounds may also serve as a preventive treatment to prevent the development of Alzheimer’s disease,” he explained.
Development and commercial milestones could exceed $1 billion for the Swedish biotech, while tiered mid-single-digit royalties on sales have the potential to increase the deal's value even further, according to the release.
Lilly has been active in Alzheimer’s over the past few years as it searches for the next breakthrough following its success in obesity. Lilly's Kisunla is the company's primary Alzheimer's asset, which managing neurology analyst at GlobalData, Philippa Salter, said could reach $3.8 billion in sales by 2033. The Alzheimer's market is expected to increase in value eightfold by 2034, according to GlobalData.
But Kisunla rise has not been without controversy. In 2024, The New York Times reported that Lilly failed to tell patients involved in a Kisunla trial the results of genetic tests used to identify those at higher risk of developing Alzheimer's, a decision some experts questioned.
Lilly is not resting on the laurels of Kisunla, which was approved in 2024, and has remained busy both adding to and culling assets from its Alzheimer's pipeline. Last year, the company dropped eperognastat, an oral O-GlcNAcase anti-tau agent, after the candidate failed to slow clinical decline in patients with early symptomatic Alzheimer's disease in a Phase 2 trial.
In April, Lilly paid $12.5 million to Swiss biotech AC Immune to expand their Alzheimer's disease collaboration. The deal followed an $81 million upfront payment in 2018 for a small molecule designed to inhibit tau aggregation in Alzheimer's patients.