AbbVie and ADARx Pharmaceuticals have announced a multi-billion dollar partnership to develop small interfering RNA (siRNA) therapeutics across neuroscience, immunology and oncology.
The collaboration and licence option agreement combines AbbVie’s capabilities in biotherapeutic drug development and commercialisation with ADARx’s RNA technology.
siRNA are a class of molecules that are able to regulate gene expression and protein production. They differ from traditional modalities such as small molecules and antibodies, and are designed to prevent the production of disease-causing proteins by targeting relevant messenger RNA (mRNA).
ADARx’s proprietary siRNA technology has the potential to enable “sustained and precise” mRNA silencing, according to the companies.
The agreement will see AbbVie contribute its work in antibody engineering, antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) and tissue delivery approaches to “augment” ADARx’s discovery efforts.
In exchange, ADARx will receive an upfront payment of $335m and will be eligible for “several billion dollars” in additional contingent payments, including option-related fees and milestone payments, alongside tiered royalties.
Jonathon Sedgwick, senior vice president and global head, discovery research, AbbVie, said: “siRNA is a promising genetic medicine approach for silencing disease-causing genes, but challenges still remain in targeting and delivering siRNA effectively.
“We are very pleased to collaborate with ADARx, leveraging [its] proprietary RNA technology alongside our antibody, ADC and therapeutic area research and development expertise to bring siRNA forward as a potential novel therapeutic modality alongside our other established approaches.”
ADARx’s co-founder, president and chief executive officer, Zhen Li, added that the collaboration “further validates the differentiated RNA technology that [it has] developed at ADARx” and “has the potential to unlock tremendous clinical and commercial potential across multiple disease areas”.
The deal follows AbbVie’s $1.64bn partnership with Neomorph in January aimed at developing new molecular glue degraders for multiple targets across oncology and immunology.
In the same month, the company partnered with Simcere Zaiming to develop an investigational drug candidate for multiple myeloma, and completed its previously announced $200m acquisition of Nimble Therapeutics, marking a notable boost to its immunology pipeline.