€39m for neurodegeneration therapies

Lausanne-based AC Immune SA raised the money in a private financing in which it issued Series E preferred shares to certain institutions and existing shareholders. The company did not disclose who exactly the investors are.

Just three weeks ago, AC Immune hooked up with Biogen for two radiopharmaceutical diagnostic programmes in neurodegenerative diseases. The companies agreed to work on an alpha-synuclein PET radioligand, which will serve as an imaging biomarker for Parkinson’s disease and related synucleinopathies. AC Immune and Biogen also agreed to pursue a new research programme to identify and develop novel PET radioligands for TDP-43, a recently identified target of growing interest in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases.  

AC Immune’s lead product Crenezumab, currently in Phase III clinical development by partner Genentech, is a fully humanised IgG4 monoclonal antibody that binds all forms of misfolded Abeta proteins to prevent and break up Abeta aggregation and promote the disaggregation of existing Abeta aggregates including plaques. The IgG4 subclass is designed to reduce the effector function of microglia and to clear Abeta from the brain while limiting inflammation, thereby suggesting a favourable safety profile. Crenezumab was discovered at AC Immune using the SupraAntigenTMplatform and out-licensed to Genentech in 2006, a company with a long standing history of developing and commercialising innovative biologics.