AbbVie is tightening its ties to Sosei Heptares. Two years after forming an inflammatory and autoimmune pact, the Big Pharma is paying $40 million and committing up to $1.2 billion in milestones to expand its relationship with the specialist into neurological diseases.
Under the terms of the new deal, Sosei will perform and fund R&D activities against neurological targets up to the completion of studies readying the drug for the clinic. At that stage, AbbVie has the exclusive option to license up to three programs and take responsibility for their further development. The deal is worth up to $40 million in research milestones over the next three years, plus the upfront fee and more distant paydays.
Sosei landed the deal on the strength of its StaR technology and structure-based drug design platform, both of which have proven popular with biopharma partners over the years. The technologies enable the engineering of functional, stabilized G protein-coupled receptor-targeting molecules.
AbbVie joined companies including AstraZeneca, Genentech and Pfizer on Sosei’s list of collaborators in the summer of 2020, when it agreed to pay up to $32 million in upfront fees and near-term milestones to team up on inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Matt Barnes, Ph.D., head of U.K. R&D at Sosei, sees the existing deal providing a launchpad for the neurological disease projects.
“We have established a highly productive working relationship with our counterparts at AbbVie over the past two years through our initial collaboration and are very pleased with how this is progressing. We believe this strong foundation will enable us to get off to a quick start as we tackle the novel and challenging neurology targets under this new agreement,” Barnes said in a statement.
AbbVie acquired a link to Sosei’s neurological disease capabilities when it bought Allergan, which paid $125 million upfront for assets including a M1 receptor agonist in 2016. However, the discovery of a rare tumor in a nonhuman primate study prompted the partners to pause development in 2018. AbbVie returned the rights to Sosei early last year.