PeptiDream And Takeda Expand Collaborative Research And License Agreement To Develop Peptide Drug Conjugates For CNS Diseases

• Expansion of existing partnership covering neuromuscular indications to now include CNS indications in neurodegeneration
• PeptiDream is eligible to receive up to approximately $3.5B in total, as upfront and potential preclinical / clinical / launch / sales-based milestones, excluding royalty payments

PeptiDream Inc. (Representative Director and President: Patrick C. Reid; Head Office: Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture; "PeptiDream") and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited ("Takeda") announced today an expansion of its research collaboration and exclusive license agreement to create peptide-drug conjugates (PDCs) for several central nervous system (CNS) targets, which play important roles in chronic neurodegenerative diseases.

PeptiDream and Takeda originally entered into a collaborative research and exclusive license agreement in December 2020 to create PDCs for neuromuscular diseases by conjugating peptides developed by PeptiDream and JCR Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. that bind to human transferrin receptor 1 (TfR1) to specific drug payloads selected by Takeda. This new collaboration expands the use of the TfR1 binding peptide ligands for CNS targets associated with neurodegeneration allowing Takeda to conjugate the peptides with therapeutic cargoes optimized to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB).

A significant challenge to the development of effective medicines for neurodegenerative diseases is the ability to deliver therapeutic molecules across the BBB into the brain. Peptide carriers that bind to TfR1 when conjugated to various therapeutic payloads facilitate the transport of the payload across the BBB into the brain, and thereby significantly improve functional benefit. This TfR1 BBB shuttle approach has the potential to accelerate the development of therapies for which BBB penetration remains challenging. This approach may also enable broad brain region biodistribution that is frequently needed to effectively treat many neurodegenerative diseases for which few, if any, effective drugs currently exist.

“We have made great progress since initiating our research collaboration with PeptiDream for neuromuscular disease in December 2020, which served as the catalyst for this expansion into programs focusing on neurodegeneration. PeptiDream’s TfR1 binding technology holds great promise for tackling the biodistribution challenges needed to develop effective therapies for complex neurological disorders,” said Sarah Sheikh, Head, Neuroscience Therapeutic Area Unit at Takeda. “This collaboration demonstrates Takeda’s commitment to cutting edge neuroscience whether it resides within Takeda or the labs of our partners where we can combine their strengths with our own world-class research laboratories in Shonan, Japan.”

Keiichi Masuya, Executive Vice President at PeptiDream, said the following. “We are very pleased to be able to further expand our efforts with Takeda using TfR1 binding peptides. Through these efforts we hope to contribute to the acceleration of innovative new drug development, by improving the efficiency of uptake of drugs into the brain—which has been a problem in the past—and lowering a major hurdle to drug development for CNS diseases. We are very much looking forward to starting collaborations with Takeda researchers, not only in the area of neuromuscular diseases, but also CNS diseases.”

Under the terms of the agreement, PeptiDream is eligible to receive up to approximately $3.5B (JPY 390.3 billion^*1) in total as upfront and potential preclinical, development, launch, and sales-based milestones. In addition to the above, PeptiDream is also eligible to receive royalties on net sales of any product resulting from the collaboration.

^*1: USD/ JPY currency conversion rate: 111.5