Takeda will not move forward with Wave Life Sciences on a Huntington’s disease drug, ending their collaboration that first started in 2018 with a $110 million upfront from the Japanese pharma.
In an SEC filing Tuesday, Wave said Takeda “elected to terminate its option” for the huntingtin target, which is the only active portion left under the terms of the original deal. The biotech is now fully responsible for advancing the drug candidate, WVE-003, through clinical development for Huntington’s disease, as well as any other programs targeting the huntingtin protein.
In June, Wave said the drug lowered levels of mutant huntingtin protein by 44% in a small Phase 1b/2a test in patients with Huntington’s disease. The biotech expects feedback from regulators on a potential accelerated approval pathway for WVE-003 by the end of the year.
On Tuesday, the company said the drug still has a $5 billion “commercial opportunity,” adding the early data have drawn interest from other potential partners.
The 2018 agreement saw Wave get $110 million upfront from Takeda alongside a share purchase worth $60 million in exchange for the option to co-develop and co-commercialize programs for Huntington’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia and spinocerebellar ataxia type 3. The deal featured $2 billion in potential milestones.
If Takeda had stayed on board with the Huntington’s asset, it would have been able to opt-in to a split cost-sharing development plan. But Takeda had been pulling back from parts of its partnership with Wave for some time.
The two companies revised their original pact in 2021, dropping joint discovery work, with Takeda paying Wave more than $22 million. Last year, Wave’s ALS drug failed to show clinical benefit versus placebo in an early-stage trial, leading to the termination of the asset.
In May, Takeda said it would “rigorously prioritize its R&D pipeline” as part of a broader multiyear restructuring aimed at simplifying the business.
Wave still has a cash runway through 2027 after a $230 million public offering that it completed earlier this month.