Experienced life science profile and largest investor joins the Brain+ team as Strategic Partnerships Advisor to accelerate pharma partner deals
Copenhagen, Denmark, October 10, 2023 – Brain+ A/S (Nasdaq First North: BRAINP)
- John Haurum, a well-known profile in the European life science community, and the largest shareholder in Brain+, joins the Brain+ team to help develop and close new strategic pharma partnerships
- John holds 4.2 million Brain+ shares, corresponding to a 9.4% ownership, and recently announced commitment to exercise all his 2.9 million TO 2 warrants
- Brain+ is in dialogue with major Alzheimer’s pharma players and has entered a phase, where additional expertise in deal making and partnering is required
- There have been breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s medicines in 2023, and pharmaceutical companies are looking for digital companion products, being part of a larger trend of pharma partnering with digital therapeutics to develop new treatments
John Haurum is an experienced Life Science executive with a strong track record of brokering major pharma deals. This includes several out-licensing and M&A deals during his six years tenure as CEO of F-star Therapeutics in Cambridge, UK, which in aggregate have returned over $300M to shareholders. John was also M&A advisor to DJS Antibodies during its sale to AbbVie in 2022 for $255M upfront. John is currently the chairman of five biotech companies, and he joined Brain+ as a shareholder in 2023 including as one of the biggest private investors in the company’s unit rights issue in May 2023. Together with so far five other external investors and the Board and Management of Brain+, John has also announced his commitment to exercise all his TO 2 warrants in the ongoing warrant exercise (until 16 October 2023).
John Haurum, Strategic Partnerships Advisor, Brain+: “I am very pleased to take an operational role and help Brain+ going forward, as I see both a great medical need and tremendous commercial potential in Brain+. I have followed the company closely, and I am convinced that Brain+ will become a leading player in the dementia space, based on its unique, evidence-based and protected products and technologies. Brain+ has delivered consistently on its plan and built a strong competitive foundation. I look forward to help Brain+ grow its business for the benefit of dementia patients, their families and caregivers, as well as for society. I also personally see a disproportionately big value potential in Brain+ and want to help realize it.”
The pharmaceutical industry is achieving major breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s and looking for digital companion products
The pharmaceutical industry has invested billions of dollars in the development of effective drugs to meet the needs for better treatment of dementia, and 2023 has already been a breakthrough year for the industry: On June 24, 2023 Lilly's donanemab received U.S. FDA's Breakthrough Therapy designation for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, and on July 6, 2023, Biogen’s Lequembi was granted full approval in USA with an indication to slow disease progression in early Alzheimer’s. Danish Novo Nordisk also has a Phase III drug, Semaglutide in the pipeline for dementia. At the same time, pharmaceutical companies are increasingly investing in digital companion products, making Brain+ an interesting target for such deals in the dementia field. Major licensing deals have been made in recent years between pharmaceutical companies and digital therapeutics companies; the largest to date being between Click Therapeutics and Boehringer Ingelheim with their aim to co-develop a digital therapeutic for schizophrenia. Click Therapeutics received an upfront payment, funding for R&D, as well as clinical, regulatory and commercial milestone payments up to a total of USD 460 million, plus tiered royalties.
CST enhances the effects of Alzheimer’s medicines and Brain+ is well positioned for partnerships
Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST) together with drug therapy resulted in enhanced cognitive benefits, compared to drug alone in patients with mild to moderate dementia (2nd systematic Cochrane review (Woods et al., Jan 2023)). As the sole provider of digitalized CST, this puts Brain+ in a unique partnering position, pioneering digital CST as a companion product for potential pharmaceutical companies developing new Alzheimer’s medicines. The Brain+ approach to digital CST has the added benefit of focusing on improving the quality of life for both patient, caregiver and the family with large potential health care cost savings, and greatly increasing accessibility to CST for patients with dementia. It is estimated that 85% of people living with dementia do not receive post-diagnostic care (Alzheimer’s Disease International).
Rox Health partnership and ongoing dialogues with Alzheimer’s pharma companies
Brain+ entered into its first pharma partnership in December 2021 with Rox Health, the digital venture builder of Roche, to bring its first product, the CST-Therapist Companion to the German market. This is an ongoing valuable collaboration with Roche co-developing the market access strategy for Germany. Simultaneously Brain+ has been advancing dialogues with other pharma companies and now reached a progressed phase with in particular one major Alzheimer’s player where pharma dealmaking expertise is required. John Haurum brings this expertise, and with John’s track record and the recently announced planned addition to the Board of Directors of Anish Shindore, one of the most experienced pharma-digital therapeutics profiles in the industry, Brain+ now has a broad contact network and deep BD expertise inhouse.
Contact Information
CEO and Co-founder: Kim Baden-Kristensen, + 45 31393317 (SMS), [email protected]
Mission: Bringing effective digitally-delivered dementia therapies to those in need, serving a million people with dementia, care-givers and clinicians by 2030
