Muna Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on developing innovative therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases, has announced a research alliance with GSK to identify and validate novel drug targets for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
The companies will explore insights from Muna’s MiND-MAP platform, which applies spatial transcriptomics to brain samples from Alzheimer’s disease patients, cognitively resilient individuals, healthy controls, and centenarians with and without cognitive impairment. This unique dataset of exceptional breadth and resolution will fuel the discovery and development of innovative medicines for Alzheimer’s disease.
Together, Muna and GSK will assess postmortem human brain samples with spatial transcriptomics and other approaches to identify and validate potential new drug targets. The collaboration leverages Muna’s deep expertise in mapping the brain’s response to pathological protein aggregates and its all-in-human platform to identify cellular mechanisms, gene networks, and molecular interactions that underlie brain resilience. Candidate drug targets will be validated using Muna’s suite of humanized cell and animal models, supported by insights from patient tissue and biofluid samples.
“Our agreement marks a pivotal moment in Muna’s evolution and in the broader Alzheimer’s research landscape,” said Rita Balice-Gordon, Ph.D., Muna’s Chief Executive Officer. “By combining GSK’s commitment to breakthrough science with our MiND-MAP platform’s ability to deliver novel insights into brain resilience, we aim to transform the landscape of drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases and bring new hope to millions of patients worldwide.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Muna will receive an upfront payment from GSK of €33.5 million. In addition, Muna will be eligible to receive up to €140 million per target in milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties on net sales of products. Muna will expand and enhance its existing MiND-MAP dataset and will lead the identification and validation of new Alzheimer’s disease targets. GSK will lead drug development and be responsible for preclinical activities, clinical development, manufacturing, and commercialization resulting from work on targets discovered and validated in the collaboration.
“By applying spatial multi-omics to unique patient phenotypes, Muna’s MiND-MAP platform is able to determine the genetic and cellular basis of progression and resilience in neurodegenerative diseases,” said Kaivan Khavandi M.D., Ph.D., SVP & Global Head of Respiratory/Immunology R&D at GSK. “The alliance exemplifies our discovery ethos, to utilize advanced data and platform tech to identify high-confidence, human-data-derived, causal targets, which we can support with GSK’s scale and expertise in clinical development and commercialization, to bring desperately needed new therapeutic solutions in Alzheimer’s disease.”
