AZTherapies Acquires Smith Therapeutics to Advance Neurodegenerative Disease Research with CAR-Treg Platform

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that on October 25, 2019, biopharmaceutical company AZTherapies announced the acquisition of Smith Therapeutics. Concurrently, Dr. Philip Ashton-Rickardt, founder and CEO of Smith Therapeutics, joined AZTherapies’ senior leadership team as Senior Vice President of Immunology. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Prior to founding Smith Therapeutics, Dr. Philip Ashton-Rickardt served as Head of the Department of Immunology at Imperial College London, Visiting Professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Chicago. He has received the University of Chicago Tenure Award and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers presented by President Bill Clinton, and has published 65 papers in more than 30 academic journals, including Cell, Science, Immunity, and Nature Immunology.

AZTherapies is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company founded in 2011 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The company is dedicated to developing breakthrough therapies for neuroinflammatory diseases, aiming to fundamentally advance research on neurodegenerative disorders, preserve normal cognitive function in the elderly, and improve their quality of life.

AZTherapies’ lead candidate, ALZT-OP1, is built on a multimodal approach that views neuroinflammation as the root cause of severe neurodegenerative pathology and seeks to halt or slow disease progression.

Smith Therapeutics, founded in 2017, is a private biopharmaceutical company based in Massachusetts, USA. The company’s proprietary research platform utilizes modified T cells to balance inflammatory and regulatory cells in the brain.

To date, Smith Therapeutics has successfully engineered immunosuppressive regulatory T (Treg) cells using chimeric antigen receptors (CARs). Previous studies have demonstrated that Tregs can suppress microglial activation and reduce neuroinflammation in models of neurodegenerative diseases, suggesting their potential therapeutic value in progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Dr. David R. Elmaleh, Founder and CEO of AZTherapies, stated, “This acquisition will further strengthen our leadership in developing therapies targeting neuroinflammation. We look forward to advancing the CAR-Treg program into the IND-enabling and clinical development stages.”

Dr. Philip Ashton-Rickardt stated, “Both companies recognize neuroinflammation as the root cause of neurodegenerative diseases, and this shared understanding makes the acquisition a strategic choice beneficial to both parties. Leveraging AZTherapies’ expertise in drug development and clinical trials, we will be well-positioned to advance CAR-Treg technology, fundamentally driving progress in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.”

(Compiled by Jiang Ying)