Leerink analyst Marc Goodman started Neurocrine with a Market Perform and $110 price target as he initiates Neuroscience space with a Positive View. The analyst believes the Neuroscience sector is experiencing a "renaissance" as multiple new agents and mechanisms are coming up the pipeline across major therapeutic areas, the number of clinical studies is growing nicely, and the FDA is friendly to innovation in this space, companies are getting smarter about speed-to-market strategies and selecting niche sub-populations to focus on for initial product approvals, payer pushback on usage is much lower than in other categories, and physicians are enthusiastic about new agents. Regarding Neurocrine, Goodman believes Ingrezza should be a significant product for TD/TS but consensus sales expectations are already high.

Voyager Therapeutics (VYGR) announced that the joint steering committee with its collaborator Neurocrine Biosciences (NBIX) has selected a lead development candidate in the GBA1 gene therapy program for the potential treatment of Parkinson's disease and other GBA1-mediated diseases. The candidate combines a GBA1 gene replacement payload with an intravenously administered, blood-brain barrier penetrant, novel capsid derived from Voyager's TRACER capsid discovery platform. The companies expect to file an Investigational New Drug application with the FDA for the program in 2025. Selection of the development candidate triggered a $3 million milestone payment to Voyager, which the Company expects to receive in the second quarter of 2024. Voyager is eligible to receive additional future development and commercialization milestone payments based on the further advancement of this program. The GBA1 program is being developed under the 2023 strategic collaboration agreement between Voyager and Neurocrine Biosciences for research, development, manufacture, and commercialization of certain AAV gene therapy products for programs targeting Parkinson's disease and other GBA1-mediated diseases and three other undisclosed programs to address central nervous system diseases or conditions associated with rare genetic targets. Under the terms of the 2023 collaboration agreement, Voyager is eligible to receive up to $1.5 billion in potential development milestone payments, as well as additional commercial milestone payments, tiered royalties on net sales, and program funding. Voyager maintains an option to elect 50/50 cost- and profit-sharing in the U.S. for the GBA1 program following topline data from the first Parkinson's disease clinical trial.