Chiesi Global Rare Diseases enters co-development deal with Aliada

Chiesi Global Rare Diseases, a business unit of privately-held Italian drugmaker Chiesi Farmaceutici established to deliver innovative therapies and solutions for people living with rare diseases, has announced a co-development agreement with Aliada Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing a novel blood-brain barrier (BBB)-crossing platform technology to address challenging disease areas with high unmet need.

The research collaboration will focus on multiple enzyme cargoes modified with Boston, USA-based Aliada's Modular Delivery (MODEL) platform, which harnesses endogenous brain endothelial cell transport mechanisms to efficiently move large molecule therapeutics across the BBB. No financial details of the collaboration have been disclosed.

Beyond enabling high therapeutic exposure in the brain, the MODEL platform demonstrates advantages over competing approaches with a broad design landscape that confers the ability to optimize therapeutics for both central nervous system (CNS) delivery and downstream functionality.