Amgen Inc. announced Thursday the start of a collaboration with Neumora Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharma company specializing in brain disease medicines.
Neumora received a $100 million equity investment from Thousand Oaks-based Amgen and gained exclusive global rights to commercialize and develop some Amgen drugs for neurodegenerative diseases. The collaboration will be completed through a combination of Neumora’s neuroscience platform and insights produced by Amgen subsidiary deCODE genetics, which seeks to find genes associated with certain diseases.
“Our collaboration with Neumora leverages both our unique capabilities from deCODE and Neumora’s focus and expertise in brain diseases to discover and develop potentially best-in-class precision therapies,” David Reese, Amgen’s executive vice president of research and development, said in a statement.
Reese added that although Amgen is not internally involved in neuroscience research, the collaboration shows the company’s commitment to remain engaged in neuroscience via external collaborations.
“This partnership with Amgen underscores the vast potential of precision drug development for brain diseases; insights generated by deCODE will further enhance Neumora’s data-driven precision medicine approach,” Paul Berns, Neumora’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.
Shares of Amgen (AMGN) closed down 86 cents, or a fraction of a percent, to $209.12 on the Nasdaq Thursday, a day when the market closed up more than 1 percent.
