Quince Therapeutics may have picked up a new leadership team, a rare disease focus and even a new name over the past year, but the biotech’s previous C-suite members clearly have some unfinished business. Under the guise of Lighthouse Pharmaceuticals, they’ve returned to pick up Quince’s unwanted protease inhibitor portfolio.
To recap: Cortexyme—as Quince was then known—had been reeling from a string of clinical setbacks, including a clinical hold on its lead Alzheimer’s disease drug atuzaginstat, when it nabbed new leadership and acquired the skeletal-focused biotech Novosteo in May 2022. It marked a significant change in direction toward rare diseases, rather than Cortexyme’s previous focus on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, which was further signified by the name change to Quince in August.
Meanwhile, Cortexyme’s leadership team, led by CEO Casey Lynch, went off to form Lighthouse. Now, they’re back to pick up those Alzheimer’s assets they left behind. The deal also acts as a launch of sorts for Lighthouse, according to its website.
The theory behind the portfolio is that targeting a type of protease called gingipains with small-molecule inhibitors could offer a new way to tackle Porphyromonas gingivalis, a bacterium associated with dementia and other degenerative and inflammatory disorders.
Chief among them is COR588, a selective, oral small-molecule inhibitor of lysine-gingipain that Quince says is ready for a phase 2 study in Alzheimer’s with mild to moderate dementia and biomarker evidence of P. gingivalis infection. Also being handed over to Lighthhouse is COR388, a lysine-gingipain inhibitor that completed a phase 2/3 trial in Alzheimer’s, and COR852, an arginine-gingipain inhibitor in preclinical development for P. gingivalis-driven disease.
Finally, there’s COR803, a 3CLpro-targeted program in preclinical development for coronavirus. 3CLpro, also known as Mpro, is an antiviral drug target that plays a key role in the viral replication of SARS-CoV-2.
“This acquisition enables the important continued development of gingipain inhibitors for dementia and other disorders,” said Lynch, who was previously CEO of Cortexyme before co-founding Lighthouse. “Informed by the learnings from previous late-stage clinical studies, Lighthouse will move quickly to advance COR588 into key clinical studies to further validate this treatment paradigm and bring innovative treatments to patients.”
In return for the four candidates, Lighthouse could be liable to pay out up to $150 million in milestone payments on top of royalties. From its side, Quince will get a 7.5% ownership stake of Lighthouse common stock with anti-dilution through the first $10 million raised.
“This transaction represents the fulfillment of our previously stated objective to out-license Quince’s legacy protease inhibitor portfolio,” Quince CEO Dirk Thye, M.D., said in the release. “We are pleased to transfer these programs to Lighthouse as they have a tremendous amount of expertise, experience, and historical knowledge of the compounds and therapeutic area.”