Pfizer and Bain Capital Create Cerevel Therapeutics

Bain Capital and Pfizer have announced the creation of Cerevel Therapeutics, a new biopharmaceutical company focused on developing drug candidates to treat disorders of the central nervous system (CNS) to be headquartered in the greater Boston area. Pfizer is contributing a portfolio of pre-commercial neuroscience assets to Cerevel, which include three clinical-stage compounds and several pre-clinical compounds designed to target a broad range of CNS disorders including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, schizophrenia and addiction. Funds affiliated with Bain Capital Private Equity and Bain Capital Life Sciences have committed $350 million with the ability to provide additional capital should it be needed in the future.

Cerevel will seek to expand treatment options in a therapeutic area where there is an urgent unmet need for patients. Bain Capital and Pfizer will support Cerevel in building a dedicated team of CNS scientists and life sciences executives with extensive experience in clinical development of potential therapies for patients who have neurological and neuropsychological diseases. The most advanced assets in the portfolio are a D1 partial agonist which will likely enter Phase III in 2019 to treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, and a Phase II ready selective GABA 2/3 agonist which will initially be studied for epilepsy. The company also has active programs in early development, discovery and a research program in neuroinflammation. (Source: Pfizer website, 23 October, 2018)