Anima Biotech, Takeda Collaborate To Develop MRNA Translation Modulators For Neurological Diseases

(RTTNews) - Anima Biotech said that it reached a strategic collaboration with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited to discover and develop a new class of medicines for genetically-defined neurological diseases.

As per the terms of the deal, Anima will use its Translation Control Therapeutics platform to discover novel mRNA translation modulators against the collaboration targets.

The collaboration will initially include Anima's early Huntington's Disease program against the HTT target, selectively inhibiting the mutated protein with small molecules and two additional targets named by Takeda, related to neurological diseases.

Takeda will pay Anima up to about $120 million in upfront and preclinical research milestone payments and up to $1.1 billion in clinical and commercial milestones, assuming success of the three programs.

Anima said it is also eligible to receive tiered royalties on net sales of each product resulting from the collaboration.

Takeda has a time limited option to expand the collaboration with up to three additional targets subject to additional payments to Anima of up to $1.2 billion and tiered royalties, assuming success of these programs.