Last Stop Biotech

Angelini Pharma hails from Italy with the foundation of company dating back to 1919. Which started as a small laboratory has now grown into an international pharmaceutical company with an employee count of ~5,000 and revenue of roughly $1.2 Billion. Yesterday they took another large step towards increasing their expansion by investing $550 million into a South Korean biotech called Sovargen. Through this deal Angelini acquires SVG105. SVG105 is being developed for Intractable focal epilepsy. This is a condition that is characterized by seizures that remain insufficiently controlled despite the use of appropriately selected and adequately dosed anti-seizure medications. It is also referred to as refractory or drug-resistant focal epilepsy.

Under the terms of the agreement, Angelini Pharma and Sovargen will jointly oversee the preclinical development of SVG105. Upon completion of an initial option period, Angelini Pharma will secure the right to advance the compound into clinical development and pursue commercialization across all global territories excluding the Republic of Korea, China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. SVG105 represents a potentially first-in-class antisense oligonucleotide therapy that targets the mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) pathway, a pathway with strong genetic validation as a driver of multiple brain health disorders, notably drug-resistant childhood epilepsy.

As part of the collaboration, Sovargen will receive an upfront payment and will be eligible for developmental and commercial milestone payments totaling up to approximately US$550 million, in addition to tiered royalties on post-approval net sales. This partnership further expands Angelini Pharma’s neuroscience and brain health pipeline, reflecting the company’s continued investment in advanced modalities and strategic collaborations over the past two years. Key initiatives include:

• May 2025: a collaboration with GRIN Therapeutics Inc. to secure rights outside North America for radiprodil, an investigational therapy under evaluation in multiple rare genetic epilepsies and neurodevelopmental disorders.
• Early May 2025: an asset purchase and assignment agreement with OmniAb for RO’599, a preclinical-stage investigational agent with broad potential applications across brain health indications.
• 2024: a strategic alliance with Cureverse, a Korean spin-off of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, focused on small molecules with wide-ranging applications in the central nervous system (CNS).
• 2023: a partnership with JCR Pharmaceuticals (Japan) to leverage its transferrin receptor-based blood-brain barrier (BBB) technology, enabling efficient delivery of biologics across the BBB.

Through these successive agreements, Angelini Pharma has assembled a diversified portfolio of therapeutic modalities, ranging from innovative small molecules to biologics and antisense oligonucleotides, reinforcing its position as a leading innovator in brain health research and development.