Allergan acquires Naurex; strengthens mental health pipeline

Allergan has successfully completed the acquisition of Naurex, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing transformative therapies for challenging disorders of the central nervous system, including depression.  

Allergan acquired Naurex for a $560 million upfront payment net of cash acquired, $460 million of which is payable upon the closing of the acquisition and $100 million of which is payable by January of 2016, as well as potential R&D success-based and sales-threshold milestone payments. 

“The acquisition of Naurex enhances our ability to be among the leaders in the development of novel, game-changing therapies in mental health. This is an area of medicine that requires new ways to tackle some of society’s most challenging diseases and disorders,” said Brent Saunders, CEO and President of Allergan. “Naurex’s unique pipeline includes GLYX-13 and NRX-1074, two compounds that utilise NMDA modulation as a potential new approach to the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), a disease that can lead to suicidality among the most severe patients. The growing number of unregulated clinics to treat severe depression with off-label medicines is indicative of the desperate need for new treatment options for patients with depression. We have geared up to advance the development of these compounds into the next phase of clinical trials.”

Naurex acquisition strengthens Allergan’s pipeline in mental health

The acquisition of Naurex strengthens Allergan’s development pipeline in mental health with the addition of Naurex’s lead development product rapastinel (GLYX-13), a once-weekly intravenous Phase 3-ready molecule that has demonstrated rapid, robust and sustained efficacy in multiple Phase 2 clinical studies in depression. The acquisition also adds Naurex’s development product NRX-1074, a next-generation drug candidate, the intravenous form of which has shown rapid and robust antidepressant efficacy in an initial single-dose Phase 2 study. NRX-1074 is also an orally bioavailable drug candidate which is in Phase 1 studies. Rapastinel and NRX-1074 are both targeted modulators of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor. Both therapies have been found to be well-tolerated in all studies to date, with no drug-related serious adverse events.  

These therapies add to Allergan’s strong late-stage mental health research and development portfolio, with therapies in development to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and chronic migraine.