For years, many of the world’s largest, most deep-pocketed pharmaceutical firms had cast brain drugs aside, opting instead to devote resources to less risky, often more lucrative areas of research like oncology and immunology. But recent scientific and technological breakthroughs, along with the approvals of new medicines for Alzheimer’s and ALS, have helped renew investor interest in neuroscience.
In 2021, for example, GSK mounted somewhat of a return to the field through a deal with Alector, a California-based company attempting to use the immune system to fight neurodegeneration. GSK agreed to pay at least $700 million for rights to two of Alector’s experimental drugs, both of which target a protein that normally helps control immune system activity in the brain.
