AbbVie and FutureGen Biopharmaceutical have announced a licence agreement worth $1.7bn to develop a pre-clinical therapy for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
The deal gives AbbVie an exclusive global licence to develop, manufacture and commercialise the candidate, FG-M701.
In exchange, FutureGen will receive $150m in upfront and near-term milestone payments and will be eligible to receive up to $1.56bn in clinical development, regulatory and commercial milestones, as well as tiered royalties.
An estimated 3.1 million adults in the US have been diagnosed with 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.
FutureGen’s FG-M701 is a fully human monoclonal antibody targeting TL1A, a clinically validated target in IBD, that is hoped to offer greater efficacy and less frequent dosing for patients.
Jonathon Sedgwick, senior vice president and global head of discovery research at AbbVie, said: “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.”
Also commenting on the partnership, Zhaoyu Jin, founder and chief executive officer of FutureGen, said: “We believe that AbbVie is a great partner, with the ability to apply [its] expertise and global scale to realising FG-M701’s therapeutic potential and rapidly advancing this therapy for patients suffering from IBD.”
Jin added that the collaboration highlights the company’s “ability to generate potential best-in-class product candidates” with its proprietary STEP technology platform.
The deal comes less than two months after AbbVie and Parvus Therapeutics entered into an exclusive global licence collaboration and option agreement to develop and commercialise novel therapies for IBD.
The alliance combines AbbVie’s capabilities in immunology with Parvus’ innovative Navacim regulatory T cell immune tolerisation platform technology.
AbbVie also recently announced a strategic partnership worth over $700m with OSE Immunotherapeutics to develop a novel monoclonal antibody designed to resolve chronic and severe inflammation.