AbbVie continued its dealmaking spree Wednesday by partnering with OSE Immunotherapeutics to develop its early-stage, first-in-class antibody for chronic and severe inflammation.
Pictured: AbbVie’s building in San Francisco, California/iStock, Michael Vi
AbbVie on Wednesday entered into a strategic partnership with OSE Immunotherapeutics to advance the French biotech’s early-stage monoclonal antibody OSE-230 as a treatment for chronic and severe inflammation.
Under the agreement, AbbVie will pay OSE $48 million upfront and will be on the hook for up to $665 million in clinical development, regulatory and commercial milestones, for a total deal consideration of approximately $713 million. OSE will also be entitled to potential tiered royalties on global net sales, should its antibody reach the market.
AbbVie will have the exclusive global license to develop, manufacture and commercialize the investigational antibody. The companies did not indicate when they expect to close the deal but indicated that its completion is subject to antitrust clearance and other customary closing conditions.
Jonathon Sedgwick, senior vice president and global head of discovery research at AbbVie, in a statement said the agreement with OSE will help the pharma expand its immunology portfolio “with the ultimate goal of improving standard of care for patients living with inflammatory diseases globally.”
The partnership will also leverage AbbVie’s “expertise in immunology drug development” to advance OSE-230, which “offers a novel mechanism-of-action to treat chronic inflammation,” Sedgwick added.
Developed using OSE’s proprietary pro-resolutive mAb platform, OSE-230 is a potentially first-in-class monoclonal antibody that works by targeting and activating ChemR23, which is a G protein-coupled receptor that plays a central role in certain signaling pathways that help dampen inflammation. OSE-230 is currently in pre-clinical development.
According to AbbVie’s announcement, activating ChemR23 could modulate the action of both macrophages and neutrophils and may in turn “offer a novel mechanism for the resolution of chronic inflammation.”
Wednesday’s contract with OSE continues AbbVie’s dealmaking spree in recent months. Last week, the pharma paid $64 million in upfront option payments for access to Tentarix’s Tentacles platform, which the partners will leverage to develop conditionally-active, multi-specific biologic agents for two oncology and immunology programs.
Under the terms of the Tentarix deal, AbbVie also has the exclusive option to fully acquire these programs for an additional undisclosed payment each.
Last month, AbbVie also inked two contracts with Seattle-based biotech Umoja Biopharma to develop several in-situ CAR-T therapies against various cancers. The deals—which could yield a combined total of $1.44 billion in option exercise fees and developmental and regulatory milestones—will leverage Umoja’s platform that uses a proprietary lentiviral vector delivery system to allow patients to produce their own CAR-T cells.
Tristan Manalac is an independent science writer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. Reach out to him on LinkedIn or email him at tristan@tristanmanalac.com or tristan.manalac@biospace.com.
