The Swedish biotech behind a groundbreaking Alzheimer’s treatment is in talks with partners for its new technology that allows drugs to cross the notoriously tricky blood-brain barrier. BioArctic signed the first deal for its “brain transporter” with Bristol Myers Squibb late last year. The deal is worth up to $1.4bn and allows the US drugmaker to start trials using the technology to deliver another Alzheimer’s drug. The biotech, which created the Alzheimer’s medicine Leqembi that is now sold by Biogen and Eisai, is in talks with several other large pharmaceutical companies to license the transporter, hoping it will make drugs for other neurological conditions more successful. Gunilla Osswald, BioArctic chief executive, said this year was a “new era” for the company, as it invests in its own drug pipeline and has “a lot of interest from Big Pharma in our brain transporter technology”. Leqembi was the first drug that slowed the progression of Alzheimer’s, where other treatments could only help reduce symptoms. It was discovered by BioArctic’s founder Lars Lannfelt after a study of the brains of people with Alzheimer’s in a remote Arctic community.

Full report : Swedish biotech startup, BioArctic is developing a process to allow drugs to cross the layer of cells that protects the brain.