US-based Angelini Pharma, part of the privately owned Angelini Industries, and Sovargen, a South-Korean biotechnology company, have signed an exclusive global option agreement for the development and commercialisation of Sovargen’s innovative brain health asset SVG105.
Under the terms of the agreement, Angelini Pharma and Sovargen will collaboratively lead the pre-clinical development efforts for SVG105 and, following an initial option period, Angelini Pharma will have the right to advance the compound into clinical development and commercialisation outside of the Republic of Korea, China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
SVG105 is a potentially first-in-class anti-sense oligonucleotide technology to target mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) pathways. mTOR is a genetically validated target for a number of brain health disorders, including drug-resistant childhood epilepsy.
Sovargen will receive an upfront payment and will also be eligible to receive additional payments upon pre-defined development and commercial milestones of up to approx. $550 million, as well as tiered royalties on post-approval net sales.
Last year, Angelini Pharma entered into a strategic partnership with Cureverse, a Korean spin-off of the Korean Institute of Science and Technology, which is developing small molecules with broad CNS applications. In 2023, the company partnered with JCR Pharmaceuticals, a Japanese biotech company with a breakthrough blood-brain barrier technology based on a transferrin receptor mechanism, allowing biologics to cross the barrier. Consequently, Angelini’s brain health pipeline now includes diversified and modern therapeutic modalities ranging from innovative small molecule compounds to biologics and anti-sense oligonucleotides.
