Voyager Therapeutics and Neurocrine Biosciences to Collaborate on Parkinson’s Disease

Cambridge-based Voyager Therapeutics and Neurocrine Biosciences  and have announced the formation of a strategic collaboration focused on the development and commercialization of Voyager’s gene therapy programs for Parkinson’s disease and Friedreich’s ataxia, as well as rights to two programs to be determined. This collaboration combines Neurocrine Biosciences’ expertise in neuroscience, drug development and commercialization with Voyager’s innovative gene therapy programs targeting severe neurological diseases.

Under the terms of the agreement, Neurocrine Biosciences has agreed to pay Voyager $165 million in cash including a $115 million upfront payment and a $50 million equity investment at a Voyager per share price of $11.96. Voyager will also receive funding from Neurocrine Biosciences for all costs incurred on these collaboration programs. In addition, Voyager may be entitled to earn up to $1.7 billion in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments across the four programs.

“The partnership with Voyager allows us to expand our clinical development pipeline addressing neurological disorders, leverage Voyager’s expertise in CNS-focused gene therapy, and develop potential treatments for diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease and Friedreich’s ataxia, which have significant unmet clinical needs,” said Kevin Gorman, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Neurocrine Biosciences.

“Neurocrine Biosciences is an ideal partner with its proven expertise developing and commercializing treatments for movement disorders and other neurological diseases,” said Andre Turenne, president and chief executive officer of Voyager Therapeutics. “This is a transformational collaboration for Voyager that greatly enhances our efforts towards becoming the leading, fully-integrated gene therapy company focused on severe neurological diseases while allowing us to continue to invest in our additional pipeline programs and platform. We are tremendously excited to collaborate with the talented and dedicated team at Neurocrine Biosciences to further advance these programs.”

Voyager’s pipeline focuses on severe neurological diseases in need of effective new therapies, including Parkinson’s disease, a monogenic form of ALS called SOD1, Huntington’s disease, Friedreich’s ataxia, neurodegenerative diseases related to defective or excess aggregation of tau protein in the brain including Alzheimer’s disease and severe, chronic pain. Voyager has strategic collaborations with Sanofi Genzyme, AbbVie and Neurocrine Biosciences. The company was founded by scientific and clinical leaders in the fields of AAV gene therapy, expressed RNA interference and neuroscience. (Source: Neurocrine Biosciences Website, 29 January, 2019)