Nature of business

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2023

Nature of business

Nature of business

1. Nature of business

Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (the “Company”) is a biotechnology company whose mission is to leverage the power of human genetics to modify the course of and ultimately cure neurological diseases. The Company’s pipeline includes programs for Alzheimer’s disease (“AD”); amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (“ALS”); Parkinson’s disease, and multiple other diseases of the central nervous system, (“CNS”). Many of the Company’s programs are derived from its TRACER™ adeno-associated virus (“AAV”) capsid discovery platform, which the Company has used to generate novel capsids (“TRACER Capsids”) and identify associated receptors to potentially enable high brain penetration with genetic medicines following intravenous dosing. Some of the Company’s programs are wholly-owned, and some are advancing with licensees and collaborators including Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease (“Alexion”); Novartis Pharma AG, (“Novartis”); Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (“Neurocrine”); and Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. (“Sangamo”).

The Company focuses on leveraging its expertise in capsid discovery and neuropharmacology to address the delivery hurdles that have constrained the genetic medicine and neurology disciplines, with the goal of either halting or slowing disease progression or reducing symptom severity, and therefore providing clinically meaningful impact to patients. The Company is advancing its own proprietary pipeline of drug candidates for neurological diseases, with a focus on AD. The Company’s wholly-owned prioritized pipeline programs include an anti-tau antibody for AD; a superoxide dismutase 1 (“SOD1”) silencing gene therapy for ALS; and a tau silencing gene therapy for AD. The Company identified a lead development candidate for its anti-tau antibody program in the first quarter of 2023, initiated good laboratory practices (“GLP”) toxicology studies in the third quarter of 2023, and expects to submit an investigational new drug (“IND”), application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) for this program in the first half of 2024. The Company believes this trial could result in the potential to generate proof-of-concept data for slowing the spread of pathological tau via tau positron emission tomography imaging in 2026. The Company identified a lead development candidate for its SOD1 silencing gene therapy program in the fourth quarter of 2023, and the Company expects to submit the IND application for its SOD1 silencing gene therapy program in mid-2025. The Company promoted its tau silencing gene therapy program to a prioritized program in the first quarter of 2024, based on preclinical data demonstrating robust reductions in tau messenger RNA (“mRNA”) in a murine model, and it anticipates submission of an IND in 2026. The Company’s proprietary pipeline also includes an early research initiative to develop a gene therapy for the treatment of AD. This program seeks to combine a vectorized anti-amyloid antibody with a TRACER Capsid.

The Company is also working with its collaboration partners on multiple programs. In January 2019 and January 2023, the Company entered into collaboration and license agreements with Neurocrine. Under the agreements with Neurocrine, the Company is actively advancing two later preclinical stage programs: a glucocerebrosidase 1 (“GBA1”) gene therapy program for Parkinson’s disease and other GBA1-mediated diseases, and a frataxin gene therapy program for Friedreich’s ataxia (the “FA Program”). Pursuant to such agreements, the Company is also working with Neurocrine on five early-stage programs for the research, development, manufacture and commercialization of gene therapies designed to address CNS diseases or conditions associated with rare genetic targets. The Company has also entered into agreements with licensees including Novartis, Alexion, and Sangamo, to license or to provide options to receive exclusive licenses to certain TRACER Capsids. As described further below, in December 2023, the Company entered into a license and collaboration agreement with Novartis to provide Novartis certain rights regarding the development of potential gene therapy product candidates for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy and to collaborate with Novartis to develop gene therapy product candidates for the treatment of Huntington’s disease. The joint steering committee with Neurocrine selected a development candidate for the FA Program, during the first quarter of 2024, and expects to advance into first-in-human clinical trials in 2025. The Company also anticipates that its collaborative partners and licensees will submit at least one additional IND application for a partnered program and initiate clinical development for the associated program by the end of 2025.

The Company has a history of incurring annual net operating losses prior to the operating income in 2023. As of December 31, 2023, the Company had an accumulated deficit of $261.2 million. The Company has not generated any

product revenue and has financed its operations primarily through public offerings and private placements of its equity securities and funding from fees, milestone payments, and cost reimbursements associated with its prior and current collaborations and license agreements.

As of December 31, 2023, the Company had cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities of $230.9 million. Based upon its current operating plan, the Company expects that its existing cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities at December 31, 2023, together with the upfront $80.0 million payment received in January 2024 in connection with the Collaboration and License Agreement by and between the Company and Novartis dated as of December 28, 2023 (the “2023 Novartis Collaboration Agreement”), $20.0 million in proceeds from Novartis’ equity purchase, and $93.5 million in net proceeds received from a public offering closed in January 2024, to be sufficient to meet the Company’s planned operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements for at least twelve months from the issuance of these consolidated financial statements.

There can be no assurance that the Company will be able to obtain additional debt or equity financing on terms acceptable to the Company or generate product revenue or revenue from collaboration partners, on a timely basis or at all. The failure of the Company to obtain sufficient funds on acceptable terms when needed could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, results of operations, and financial condition.