AbbVie has reportedly added Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals to its shopping list. The Big Pharma teamed up with Gilgamesh last year and, according to Bloomberg, is now in talks about buying the mental health biotech outright for about $1 billion.
Gilgamesh—a Fierce 15 2024 winner—bagged $65 million upfront from AbbVie last year. That deal, which included up to $1.95 billion in option fees and milestones, positioned AbbVie to work with the biotech on treatments for psychiatric disorders. Subsequently, Gilgamesh reported a 94% remission rate in a phase 2 trial of its psychedelic drug candidate in patients with major depressive disorder.
Quoting anonymous sources, Bloomberg said AbbVie is in talks to buy Gilgamesh and could announce a deal in the coming weeks. AbbVie declined Fierce Biotech's offer to comment on the report.
However, Bloomberg's report fits with AbbVie’s business development strategy. The existing Gilgamesh partnership is part of a series of deals AbbVie has struck to bolster its pipeline of treatments for psychiatric disorders.
The Big Pharma has inked two deals with Gedeon Richter, the source of its antipsychotic blockbuster Vraylar, and paid $8.7 billion for schizophrenia drug developer Cerevel Therapeutics in recent years. The Cerevel bet suffered a setback when the lead program flunked phase 2 trials, but psychiatry remains an important part of the company’s neuroscience strategy.
For Gilgamesh, accepting a buyout bid from AbbVie would answer the question of how to fund further development of pipeline programs. The biotech last disclosed an investment in December 2022 when it raised a $39 million series B round. A $14 million grant secured support for an opioid use disorder asset last year, but Gilgamesh’s two lead programs are not covered by that funding agreement.
GM-2505, the candidate that delivered phase 2a data this year, is a 5-HT2A receptor agonist that could have psilocybin-like effects with a half-life that is a better fit for existing healthcare pathways. GM-1020, another midphase depression asset, is designed to improve on ketamine’s bioavailability and side effect profile and therefore have an ease-of-administration edge over Johnson & Johnson’s Spravato.