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The acquisition of Neurona will put UCB in both the epilepsy and cell therapy space, even as many of its fellow pharmas move away from the latter modality. UCB is fronting $650 million to absorb California-based Neurona Therapeutics to deepen its epilepsy portfolio and expand into regenerative medicine. As part of the acquisition agreement, announced Friday afternoon, UCB will also put up to $500 million on the line in milestone payments. The companies expect to consummate the transaction by the end of the second quarter, pending all necessary clearances. The buyout’s centerpiece is NRTX-1001, an investigational cell therapy undergoing Phase 1/2 development for drug-resistant unilateral and bilateral mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE). The medicine is meant to be a single-dose treatment, administered directly into the brain via a minimally invasive procedure, that delivers cells that produce the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid. This mechanism could rebalance overall neural networks in patients with epilepsy and potentially reduce the frequency of seizures, UCB said on Friday. Initial Phase 1/2 data presented in December showed that the cell therapy resulted in an up to 89% median reduction in debilitating seizures seven to 12 months after administration. The study has a primary completion date of June 2027. “For more than 30 years, UCB has helped shape the modern epilepsy landscape,” UCB CEO Jean-Christophe Tellier said in a prepared statement on Friday. “Bringing NRTX‑1001 into our portfolio allows us to extend that legacy into the era of regenerative medicine.” The asset, Tellier continued, “has the potential to provide durable targeted repair of the nervous system.” Friday’s acquisition agreement falls in line with UCB’s strategy to lean into its epilepsy expertise. In January 2022, the company bet up to $1.9 billion to swallow Zogenix and its serotonergic drug Fintepla, indicated for seizures in patients with Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. In 2025, Fintepla made €427 million (around $501 million) worldwide in net sales, a 30% year-on-year increase. UCB’s epilepsy portfolio is led by Briviact, which last year grew 14% to earn €758 million (approximately $890 million). The Neurona acquisition also signals UCB’s belief in the cell therapy modality despite some recent high-pro In October 2025, for instance, Takeda announced that it would no longer invest in cell therapies, and Novo Nordisk followed just days later. Several companies have since reaffirmed their commitment to the cell therapy space, including Oryon Cell Therapies and Stylus Medicine. The space is led by Gilead, which just this year has pumped billions into its cell capacities with the acquisition of CAR T partner Arcellx for $7.8 billion. The content above comes from the network. if any infringement, please contact us to modify.

UCB plans to pay $650 million for Neurona Therapeutics in a bid to broaden its clinical-stage epilepsy portfolio. The deal comes with as much as $500 million in milestone payments. Neurona is developing a treatment called NRTX-1001 for drug-resistant mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. CEO Cory Nicholas told Endpoints News a year ago that the FDA has signed off on a Phase 3 trial that could be used for approval. The cell therapy has already been in an open-label Phase 1/2 study and shown promise in the first handful of patients. The potential total deal value of $1.15 billion extends the growing list of billion-dollar tuck-in deals that biopharmas have been lining up for next-generation molecules to take them into the next decade. UCB’s last big acquisition was in 2022, when it dished out $1.9 billion to get a different epilepsy medication, Fintepla, as part of its Zogenix buyout . “For more than 30 years, UCB has helped shape the modern epilepsy landscape. Bringing NRTX‑1001 into our portfolio allows us to extend that legacy into the era of regenerative medicine,” UCB CEO Jean-Christophe Tellier said in a press release . As a private company, it’s unclear how big of a return Neurona’s investors will get. The startup has raised at least $385 million during its decade-long history, including $120 million last year . Well-known investors include The Column Group, Cormorant Asset Management, Viking Global Investors and Fidelity. The pluripotent stem cell-derived therapy aims to help patients who don’t respond to current epilepsy medications. Those patients sometimes have to resort to getting pieces of their brain removed through a temporal lobectomy . “Unfortunately, these are still medieval options that aren’t very good ones for people because of the destructiveness,” Nicholas previously told Endpoints. NRTX‑1001 seeks to restore malfunctioning neural circuitry by delivering cells that help make a key inhibitory neurotransmitter known as GABA. The therapy is given as a single dose directly into the brain, and the cells are “intended to persist for life,” Nicholas previously said. “When they’re stimulated by a seizure, it turns on the administered NRTX cells to secrete a proportional amount of the GABA to quiet the seizure, and after it quenches the seizure, it essentially turns itself off,” the CEO said. Nicholas and his team, which stood at 90 employees as of a year ago, also had ambitions of getting into other forms of epilepsy beyond the temporal lobe, as well as other neurological conditions such as traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and more. The biotech was founded in 2015 based on work from scientists at the University of California, San Francisco. The deal with UCB is expected to close by the end of this quarter.