Angelini Pharma and Quiver Bioscience Announce Strategic Research Collaboration and Licensing Agreement to Discover and Advance Novel Therapeutics for Genetic Epilepsies

Angelini Pharma secures exclusive global license rights to future identified drug targets
Quiver receives undisclosed advance payment and is eligible for future milestone-dependent payments and royalties
Collaboration further expands Angelini Pharma’s focus on brain health, building on its deep therapeutic expertise and drug development experience

Angelini Pharma, part of the privately owned Angelini Industries, and Quiver Bioscience (“Quiver”), a discovery technology and therapeutics company advancing programs for the treatment of central nervous system (CNS) disorders, announced today that they have entered into a collaboration and licensing agreement to advance novel therapeutics for genetic epilepsies. The collaboration brings together Quiver’s unique drug discovery capabilities, data assets, and AI models with Angelini Pharma’s established expertise in brain health and epilepsy drug development.

Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, Quiver will receive an undisclosed advance payment and support for defined research activities along with additional licensing fees granting Angelini Pharma exclusive access to collaboration-generated data during the research term. Quiver is also eligible to receive additional milestones payments of up to $120 million and additional royalties upon Angelini’s election of drug targets identified through the collaboration.

“The prospects of our collaboration with Quiver Bioscience are very promising,” said Rafal Kaminski, MD, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at Angelini Pharma.” The aim is to generate novel scientific insights on a scale and richness that has been unprecedented in this area of research. By applying cutting-edge technologies and advanced data analytics approaches, including AI, this partnership will generate a unique data set to inform the development of novel therapies in the future.”

In its latest collaboration, Angelini Pharma will leverage Quiver’s technology platform to break new grounds in deeper understanding a broad set of Developmental and Epileptic Encephalopathies (DEEs). DEEs are a group of rare diseases affecting children worldwide, causing a spectrum of neurodevelopmental symptoms and severe treatment-resistant seizures linked to genetic mutations. They are often caused by gene mutations, but functional and molecular consequences of such mutations are not well understood in most cases. Despite introduction of recently approved treatments for some DEEs, there is still a pressing unmet need for more effective therapies. Quiver Bioscience's advanced platform uses human neuronal models coupled with single-cell transcriptomic resolution, optical electrophysiology, and AI to accelerate the discovery of precision therapies for these complex conditions. The ultimate goal of the partnership is to discover and develop differentiated therapeutics that can address multiple DEEs.

“We’re excited to embark on this collaboration with the excellent team at Angelini Pharma,” said Graham T. Dempsey, PhD, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Quiver Bioscience. “Together we are pursuing a novel approach uniquely enabled by Quiver’s technology platform. By leveraging altered electrophysiology in response to genetic perturbations as the core neuronal classifier and integrating paired multi-modal data, we aim to link functional phenotypes with the underlying molecular drivers. We look forward to translating this science into new medicines for a disease area in urgent need of innovation.”

“This new partnership is another step forward to advance our strategic priorities, strengthen our global presence and potentially expand our pipeline of innovative medicines and promising candidates”, said Sergio Marullo di Condojanni, Chief Executive Officer at Angelini Pharma. “It follows a number of strategic acquisitions and collaboration agreements that we have entered over the course of the past two years and will further boost our leadership and portfolio in brain health”.

Destum Partners acted as transaction advisor to Quiver Bioscience.

About Quiver Bioscience

Quiver Bioscience is a technology-driven biotechnology company focused on accelerating discovery of empirically grounded, AI-driven therapeutics that deliver transformative value to patients with neurological disease. Quiver has built the first-of-its kind perturbation atlas of neuronal behavior using its proprietary Genomic Positioning System (GPS) platform, enabling precise target identification, functional validation, and safety assessment. Their empirical-in-a-loop approach integrates scalable human neuronal models, advanced single-cell optical electrophysiology and multi-omics techniques, with machine learning and surrogate models, to identify novel therapeutic targets and optimal candidate molecules. For information, including scientific publications describing the application of Quiver’s GPS platform to drug discovery, visit www.quiverbioscience.com.

About Angelini Pharma

Angelini Pharma is an international pharmaceutical company, part of the privately owned multi-business Angelini Industries. The Company researches, develops and commercializes health solutions with a focus on the areas of Brain Health, including Mental Health and Epilepsy, and Consumer Health. Founded in Italy at the beginning of the 20th century, Angelini Pharma operates directly in 20 countries, employing more than 3,000 people. Its products are marketed in over 70 countries through strategic alliances with leading international pharmaceutical groups. More information: https://www.angelinipharma.com.

About Angelini Industries

Angelini Industries is a multinational industrial group founded in Ancona in 1919 by Francesco Angelini. Today, Angelini Industries represents a solid and diversified industrial reality that employs approximately 5,800 employees and operates in 21 countries around the world with revenues of over 2 billion euros, generated in the health, industrial technology, and consumer goods sectors. A targeted investment strategy for growth; constant commitment to research and development; deep knowledge of markets and business sectors, make Angelini Industries one of the Italian companies of excellence in the sectors in which it operates.