Caraway Therapeutics and Abbvie collaborate to develop therapies targeting Parkinson's disease

Caraway Therapeutics will work together with Abbvie to develop therapies for Parksinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, the companies have announced.

The agreement will see the companies develop and commercialise Caraway’s small molecule therapeutics which targeted a potassium ion channel (TMEM175) critical to lysosomal function implicated in neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.

“TMEM175 is a compelling genetically validated target for which Caraway has developed a promising drug discovery program. Collaborating with Caraway to advance TMEM175 modulators has great potential to fit with AbbVie’s efforts to develop transformative treatments for patients with neurodegenerative diseases,” said Eric Karran, vice president, Neuroscience Discovery at AbbVie.

“We are delighted to partner with AbbVie on Caraway’s TMEM175 pipeline program for Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders,” said Martin D. Williams, chief executive officer of Caraway Therapeutics. “Variants in TMEM175 that reduce lysosomal function are highly prevalent genetic risk factors for the development of PD and evidence suggests that patients with reduced TMEM175 function tend to have earlier age of disease onset and increased risk of dementia. We are looking forward to collaborating with AbbVie to develop novel TMEM175 modulators and bring new hope to patients suffering from Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative disorders.”

The collaboration will Caraway continuing to advance its proprietary small molecule TMEM175 modulators with the help of Abbvie’s expertise in disease biology, clinical development and global commercialisation.

Caraway will receive an upfront cash payment of $17 million and could receive up to $267 million in payments related to development milestones. Once certain pre-clinical research and development activities are completed, Abbvie can choose to license the programme and proceed into IND-enabling studies, clinical development and commercialisation.

Dr Jonathan Behr, partner at The Dementia Discovery Fund, and a board director of Caraway Therapeutics, said: “Today’s collaboration with AbbVie highlights the significant progress that Caraway Therapeutics has made since the company was started by DDF and SV Health investors in 2017 based on the insights and vision of its Co-Founders, including Venture Partner Tim Harris, now Chair of Caraway’s Scientific Advisory Board. We are confident that by working together with AbbVie, the company can continue to successfully develop novel small molecule therapeutics, targeting TMEM175, which are designed to bring important clinical benefits to patients with Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.”