Johnson and Johnson bankrolling Alector Alzheimer’s therapy

The Johnson and Johnson Innovation Center is bankrolling a research project with San Francisco-based Alector to prove feasibility of a monoclonal antibody agent that homes in on and treats Alzheimer’s disease processes in the brain, Alector announced yesterday.

Through the agreement with Johnson and Johnson, subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals, based in Titusville, N.J., will financially back a “time-limited option” for commercial negotiation of the agent, which seems shrouded in mystery at this early stage.  

"As part of our strategy to engage large pharma partners early in the discovery process, we are delighted to collaborate with Johnson and Johnson Innovation on this program,” Alector CEO Arnon Rosenthal, PhD, stated in a press release. “It exemplifies how large pharma companies can access early stage exploratory, high-risk high-reward programs."

Alector is currently in partnership with Adimab, headquartered in Lebanon, N.H., for production of the antibody, which is said to target new proteins identified in recent genetic testing for neurodegenerative disease.

"This agreement provides Alector with a lot of options while helping to reduce our burn rate; a win-win for both parties," commented Tillman Gerngross, PhD, chairman of Alector’s board of directors.

Operations for this research are at Janssen Labs’s California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) in San Francisco as an offshoot of Janssen’s flagship lab in San Diego.