Sanofi taps Korea’s ABL in deal for brain-penetrant bispecific for Parkinson’s

In an increasingly crowded field of α-synuclein programs for Parkinson’s disease, Sanofi has turned to South Korea’s ABL for a deal giving the French pharma rights to a bispecific antibody designed to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Sanofi (Euronext:SAN; NASDAQ:SNY) is paying $75 million up front to ABL Bio Inc. (KOSDAQ:298380) — one of the largest upfront payments for a Korean licensing deal, according to CFO Jerry Lee — in exchange for exclusive, worldwide rights to preclinical mAb ABL301. Along with modulating α-synuclein, the bispecific targets IGF1R as a shuttling mechanism to cross the blood-brain barrier, a technique ABL refers to as its Grabody-B platform...