Japan’s So­sei Hep­tares has built a who’s who list of big-name part­ners look­ing to li­cense the com­pa­nies’ dis­cov­ery-stage G pro­tein-cou­pled re­cep­tors for nov­el neu­rol­o­gy path­ways and be­yond. But with So­sei’s goal of sign­ing two to three deals per year, there are bound to be set­backs — the most re­cent cour­tesy of phar­ma gi­ant Ab­b­Vie.

Ab­b­Vie will walk away from a lega­cy Al­ler­gan li­cens­ing pact with So­sei due to “pipeline de­ci­sions” that will leave So­sei’s mus­carinic ag­o­nist can­di­dates for schiz­o­phre­nia, Alzheimer’s and oth­er neu­ro­log­i­cal con­di­tions seek­ing a new home, the com­pa­nies said Tues­day.

So­sei will re­gain ex­clu­sive com­mer­cial rights to those mol­e­cules, in which Al­ler­gan had in­vest­ed around $55 mil­lion over their four-year part­ner­ship, So­sei es­ti­mat­ed.

Los­ing Ab­b­Vie on this deal is a blow to So­sei’s ever-grow­ing list of Big Phar­ma part­ners that have lever­aged the Japan­ese dis­cov­ery out­fit for nov­el path­ways tied to GPCRs. But So­sei, now po­ten­tial­ly look­ing at a mul­ti-year path back to a part­ner­ship for those mus­carinic ag­o­nists giv­en re­cent his­to­ry, is por­tray­ing the de­ci­sion as busi­ness as usu­al giv­en Ab­b­Vie’s oth­er cuts across its merged pipeline with Al­ler­gan.

Even still, Ab­b­Vie’s de­ci­sion to move away from a nov­el path­way in­to neu­rol­o­gy giv­en the suc­cess of an­tipsy­chot­ic Vray­lar — which us­es the dopamine ag­o­nist mech­a­nism of ac­tion So­sei’s drugs even­tu­al­ly plan to re­place — does come as a sur­prise with just one of So­sei’s mol­e­cules in this space hav­ing its day in the clin­ic.

So­sei was quick to point out that Ab­b­Vie’s de­ci­sion had noth­ing to do with its mol­e­cules’ safe­ty or ear­ly ef­fi­ca­cy re­sults, tamp­ing down sus­pi­cions Ab­b­Vie was lay­ing down a los­ing hand. More­over, the Japan­ese firm is still work­ing with Ab­b­Vie on a sep­a­rate dis­cov­er-li­cens­ing pact signed in June for small mol­e­cules tar­get­ing in­flam­ma­to­ry and au­toim­mune dis­eases.

Shinichi Tamu­ra So­sei Hep­tares

“We en­joyed a pro­duc­tive re­la­tion­ship with Al­ler­gan over the course of our mus­carinic ag­o­nist col­lab­o­ra­tion and con­tin­ue to work pos­i­tive­ly with Ab­b­Vie on a new pro­gram in in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­eases that we an­nounced in June last year,” So­sei CEO Shinichi Tamu­ra said in a state­ment. “The con­sid­er­able progress that we made to­geth­er with Al­ler­gan has re­in­forced our view in the po­ten­tial of this ap­proach to cre­ate im­por­tant new prod­ucts that treat se­vere and de­bil­i­tat­ing symp­toms of Alzheimer’s dis­ease, schiz­o­phre­nia and oth­er neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­eases.”

With Ab­b­Vie off the board for its mus­carinic ag­o­nists, high­ly se­lec­tive mol­e­cules that tar­get the M1 and M4 GPCRs in the brain with­out the side ef­fects of ac­ti­vat­ing the M2 and M3 re­cep­tors, So­sei is go­ing back to the draw­ing board to find a new part­ner — which isn’t un­heard of based on the com­pa­ny’s his­to­ry.

Back in 2015, As­traZeneca agreed to part­ner with So­sei on A2a mol­e­cules af­ter Shire dumped its li­cens­ing pact with the Japan­ese com­pa­ny in 2012. In an­oth­er case — the most re­cent —Bio­haven picked up a li­cense for a group of CGRP mol­e­cules in De­cem­ber af­ter Te­va walked away from its own pact in 2015. That lat­er deal came with a mi­nus­cule $10 mil­lion in up­front cash and up to $370 mil­lion in down­stream pay­ments plus tiered roy­al­ties.

Take ei­ther ex­am­ple and it could be be­tween three and five years be­fore So­sei scrounges up an­oth­er deal for its mus­carinic ag­o­nists. In the mean­time, the com­pa­ny is look­ing to high­light new “val­ue in­flec­tion points” for its can­di­dates as a pos­si­ble sales pitch and is work­ing to­ward its goal of ink­ing two to three new ma­jor li­cens­ing deals per year.

In De­cem­ber, Glax­o­SmithK­line tapped So­sei for dis­cov­ery work tar­get­ing IBD and oth­er gas­troin­testi­nal im­mune dis­or­ders with small-mol­e­cule ag­o­nists for GPR35, an or­phan G pro­tein-cou­pled re­cep­tor with a ge­net­ic link to those con­di­tions. As part of the deal, So­sei will lead pre­clin­i­cal R&D and hand clin­i­cal work, man­u­fac­tur­ing and com­mer­cial­iza­tion to GSK.

The British drug gi­ant agreed to hand out $44 mil­lion for near-term de­vel­op­ment mile­stones and re­search fund­ing. So­sei will al­so be due up to $437 mil­lion pend­ing a se­ries of de­vel­op­ment, reg­u­la­to­ry and com­mer­cial­iza­tion mile­stones.

Rising monkeypox cases have put the US on high alert as it announces a national health emergency, which grants the government more power in its response.

The news comes as Bavarian Nordic continues to fill orders for its Jynneos vaccine and other companies – including Moderna – consider jumping into the vaccine race. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that the US has allowed around 20 million doses of smallpox vaccine in its stockpile to expire.

Forget buyer’s remorse, Pfizer is likely feeling pretty good about its $11.6 billion Biohaven takeover deal following reports of a 57% sales boost for migraine med Nurtec.

Biohaven reported in Q2 results on Friday that it’s cleared the necessary antitrust hurdles to move forward with the sale of its calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) assets to Pfizer. However, because the company is “focused on workstreams related to the closing” of the deal, it did not host a call with analysts and investors.