Neurocrine Biosciences has handed back two discovery-stage gene therapy programs to Voyager Therapeutics, although the companies’ wider central-nervous-system-focused collaboration remains on track.
The biotechs have been working together in the CNS space since a $1.7 billion biobucks pact in 2019, with their relationship strengthened in 2023 to focus on Voyager’s gene therapy program for Parkinson’s disease and other GBA1-mediated diseases. The GBA1 program involves combining a gene replacement payload with novel capsids from Voyager’s TRACER platform.
The updated 2023 collaboration also saw the two companies work on three new gene therapy programs directed to rare CNS targets, each of which were expected to leverage Voyager’s TRACER capsids.
But in Voyager’s first-quarter earnings results published Tuesday, May 6, the biotech said that Neurocrine had "deprioritized" two discovery-stage programs against undisclosed targets, meaning they will return to Voyager.
The discontinuations were not the result of any safety concerns, Voyager stressed in the release.
The biotech said it still expects to submit requests this year to take the lead candidates from the collaboration into clinical trials, namely the GBA1 gene therapy program for both Gaucher and Parkinson’s diseases, as well as a Friedreich’s ataxia program. The expectation is that these studies will kick off in 2026, leading Voyager to receive $35 million in milestone payments.
Voyager ended March with what it described as a “strong cash position” of $295 million, which is expected to fund operations into mid-2027. The company already has one Alzheimer’s disease candidate in the clinic in the form of the anti-tau antibody VY7523, while lining up a preclinical tau silencing gene therapy called VY1706.
“We continue to thoughtfully and strategically advance our pipeline, including our two wholly-owned tau targeting programs VY7523 and VY1706 for Alzheimer’s disease, as well as the FA and GBA1 programs, which are advancing towards INDs this year,” Voyager CEO Alfred Sandrock Jr., M.D., Ph.D., explained in the May 6 release.
The 2023 deal with Voyager saw Neurocrine pay $175 million upfront, with the option to either split the costs when the GBA1 program reached phase 2 trials or for Voyager to retain its eligibility to up to $985 million in U.S.-based milestone payments. Regardless of which route Voyager picks for the U.S., it will still receive milestone payments from abroad. For the three additional gene therapy collabs, Voyager was in line for a more modest $175 million payday per program.
Yesterday, Voyager reported collaboration revenue of $6.5 million for the first quarter of 2025, compared to $19.5 million for the same three-month period in 2024. The company attributed this drop to “decreased revenue recognized under our Neurocrine collaboration agreements.”
The partnership between the two biotechs hasn’t always been plain sailing. In 2021, Neurocrine pulled out of the Parkinson’s disease portion of their original deal as a result of safety issues that led to an FDA clinical hold.