AbbVie has announced its $250m acquisition of inflammatory disease-focused Celsius Therapeutics.
The deal gives AbbVie access to the biotech’s lead investigational asset, an anti-TREM1 antibody to treat inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
TREM1 has been identified as a key disease of inflammation and pathology in IBD and other conditions.
The candidate, CEL383, has completed an early-stage clinical study and has been shown in preclinical assays to inhibit TREM1 signalling, reducing the levels of multiple inflammatory mediators “of high clinical relevance” in inflammatory conditions, AbbVie said.
Kori Wallace, vice president, global head of immunology clinical development, AbbVie, said the company is “eager to advance the development of CEL383 with a goal of helping more patients with IBD achieve remission”.
Tariq Kassum, Celsius’ chief executive officer, added: “AbbVie shares our excitement about the potential of TREM1 inhibition for patients with inflammatory disease… We look forward to the further development of this promising programme, which we hope will offer a new approach to the treatment of IBD.”
An estimated 3.1 million adults in the US are affected by IBD, a term for conditions characterised by chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
The exact cause of IBD is unknown and symptoms include persistent diarrhoea, abdominal pain, rectal bleeding, weight loss and fatigue.
The Celsius acquisition is not AbbVie’s first IBD-centred deal of the month, after it announced a licence agreement worth $1.7bn with FutureGen Biopharmaceutical to develop pre-clinical therapy FG-M701.
Jonathon Sedgwick, senior vice president and global head of discovery research at AbbVie, said at the time of the announcement: “The prevalence of IBD continues to increase and many people living with ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease do not respond to current therapies… We look forward to our collaboration with FutureGen in advancing [the] development of FG-M701 for the treatment of IBD.”
AbbVie and Parvus Therapeutics also recently entered into an exclusive global licence collaboration and option agreement to develop and commercialise novel therapies for IBD, just days before the company announced that it would be expanding its inflammatory and autoimmune disease portfolio by acquiring Landos Biopharma for up to $212.5m.