16 July 2025 | Wednesday | News
Acumen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ABOS) (“Acumen” or the “Company”), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a novel therapeutic that targets toxic soluble amyloid beta oligomers (AβOs) for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), today announced a collaboration, option and license agreement with JCR Pharmaceuticals (“JCR”) to develop an oligomer-targeted Enhanced Brain Delivery (EBDTM) therapy for Alzheimer’s disease. JCR is a global specialty pharmaceuticals company that applies scientific expertise and unique technologies to research, develop, and deliver next-generation therapies.
While the blood-brain barrier (BBB) protects the human brain from potentially harmful substances, this protective barrier makes it challenging to deliver therapeutics, especially larger molecules like biologics, into the brain at higher quantities. The combination of sabirnetug or additional, novel, AβO-selective antibodies with JCR’s BBB-penetrating technology (J-Brain Cargo®) strengthens Acumen’s portfolio of AβO-targeted therapies. The partnership is designed to advance potential next-generation treatment options for people living with Alzheimer’s disease, by targeting the development of products with enhanced efficacy, safety and convenience.
“We are thrilled to enter into this collaboration pairing Acumen’s AβO-targeted antibody expertise with JCR’s validated proprietary BBB-penetrating technology after completion of a number of feasibility experiments with JCR over the past year,” said Daniel O’Connell, Chief Executive Officer of Acumen. “Coupling Acumen’s differentiated mechanistic approach using AβO-preferring antibodies with JCR’s innovative transferrin BBB-delivery platform may support the advancement of an exciting next-generation therapeutic option for this area of significant unmet need. Following a robust search and evaluation process assessing multiple technologies in the space, we are excited to formalize this collaboration with an established leader who has successfully developed an approved therapy in Japan. We look forward to producing preclinical data packages in early 2026 that will further inform our EBDTMdevelopment strategy.”
J-Brain Cargo® technology is JCR’s proprietary drug delivery system that efficiently delivers drugs to target tissues, including the central nervous system, through receptor-mediated transcytosis. It is applicable to various modalities including antibodies, enzymes, oligonucleotides, lipid nanoparticles, gene and cell therapy, peptides and decoy receptors. The first drug developed based on this technology is approved in Japan for the treatment of a lysosomal storage disorder, exhibiting an established safety profile.
Acumen’s lead program, sabirnetug, is the first humanized monoclonal antibody to demonstrate in AD patients selective target engagement of AβOs, a soluble and highly synaptotoxic form of Aβ that accumulates early in AD and is a persistent trigger of synaptic dysfunction and neurodegeneration. The Phase 1 INTERCEPT-AD clinical trial demonstrated sabirnetug was generally well-tolerated with low overall rates of ARIA-E. The trial also showed dose- and exposure-dependent target engagement with AβOs and additionally showed statistically significant amyloid plaque reduction compared to placebo at higher dose multiple-ascending dose cohorts evaluated in the study.
Acumen is currently investigating sabirnetug in ALTITUDE-AD (NCT06335173) a Phase 2, multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial that enrolled 542 patients with early AD at sites in the United States, Canada, the European Union and the United Kingdom. Enrollment completion in the trial was announced in March 2025. Acumen plans to share topline results, including efficacy and safety data, in late 2026.
Collaboration Details and Next Steps
Financial Terms
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