NORTH CHICAGO, Ill. and
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.,
Dec. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/
-- AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV), a research-based global
biopharmaceutical company, and Frontier Medicines, Corp., a
precision medicine company drugging challenging protein targets to
develop breakthrough medicines that change the course of human
diseases, today announced a global strategic collaboration to
discover, develop and commercialize a pipeline of innovative small
molecule therapeutics against high-interest, difficult-to-drug
protein targets.
Under the multi-year collaboration, AbbVie and Frontier will
utilize Frontier's proprietary chemoproteomics platform to identify
small molecules for programs directed to novel E3 ligases and
certain oncology and immunology targets. Whereas conventional drug
discovery methodologies have been primarily successful against a
relatively discrete set of target classes, chemoproteomics-based
screening in relevant cellular contexts has the potential to enable
targeting of a significantly broader range of proteins. By
selecting certain immunology and oncology targets for the
collaboration that are considered well validated but to date,
inaccessible, the collaboration has the potential to develop highly
differentiated and efficacious therapeutics.
Under the terms of the agreement, AbbVie will pay Frontier an
upfront cash payment of $55 million,
and Frontier is eligible to receive additional milestone payments.
In addition, AbbVie will reimburse Frontier's R&D costs through
defined stages of pre-clinical development. The companies will
collaborate on the research and pre-clinical development of
programs directed against E3 ligase, immunology and oncology
targets. Upon successful completion of defined stages of
pre-clinical development, AbbVie will assume full responsibility
for global development and commercialization activities and costs
for the programs. Frontier will retain an option to share
development activities and expenses for certain oncology programs
through the completion of Phase 2. Frontier will be eligible to
receive success-based development and commercial milestone payments
that could potentially exceed $1
billion, in addition to royalty payments on commercialized
products. AbbVie retains the right to expand the collaboration in
the future by exercising options to a defined number of additional
targets. The collaboration excludes all of Frontier's internal
programs for which Frontier retains exclusive global rights.
"AbbVie is focused on making investments in promising new
technologies that assist us in our mission to develop innovative
medicines," said Jose-Carlos Gutiérrez-Ramos, Ph.D., vice
president, Discovery, AbbVie. "One of our key strategic focus areas
is targeted protein degradation and chemoproteomics, and this
collaboration with Frontier Medicines will be highly synergistic
and complementary to our ongoing efforts."
"AbbVie's commitment to innovative therapies makes them an ideal
partner in the development and commercialization of new medicines
for cancer and immunological diseases," said Chris Varma, Ph.D., Frontier's co-founder,
chairman, and CEO. "With our powerful chemoproteomics platform, we
are greatly expanding the universe of therapeutic targets that can
be accessed with small molecule drugs. This partnership enables us
to build a shared pipeline of novel therapeutics with AbbVie, while
Frontier continues to independently advance our internal programs
into the clinic."
About AbbVie
AbbVie's mission is to discover and
deliver innovative medicines that solve serious health issues today
and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a
remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic
areas: immunology, oncology, neuroscience, eye care, virology,
women's health and gastroenterology, in addition to products and
services across its Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more
information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com.
Follow @abbvie on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,
YouTube, and LinkedIn.
About Frontier Medicines
Frontier Medicines is a
precision medicine company that has pioneered a proprietary
discovery and development platform to develop medicines against
disease-causing proteins previously considered undruggable. The
company is deploying its groundbreaking scientific approaches in
chemoproteomics, covalent drug discovery, and machine learning to
develop medicines to treat a number of debilitating diseases,
starting with cancer. In its quest to "drug the undruggable,"
Frontier Medicines seeks to significantly broaden the therapeutic
landscape with novel small molecule alternatives to change the
course of a broad range of diseases. For more information,
visit www.frontiermeds.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
Forward-Looking Statements
Some statements in this
news release are, or may be considered, forward-looking statements
for purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. The words "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "project"
and similar expressions, among others, generally identify
forward-looking statements. AbbVie cautions that these
forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties
that may cause actual results to differ materially from those
indicated in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and
uncertainties include, but are not limited to, failure to realize
the expected benefits from AbbVie's acquisition of Allergan plc
("Allergan"), failure to promptly and effectively integrate
Allergan's businesses, competition from other products, challenges
to intellectual property, difficulties inherent in the research and
development process, adverse litigation or government action,
changes to laws and regulations applicable to our industry and the
impact of public health outbreaks, epidemics or pandemics, such as
COVID-19. Additional information about the economic, competitive,
governmental, technological and other factors that may affect
AbbVie's operations is set forth in Item 1A, "Risk Factors," of
AbbVie's 2019 Annual Report on Form 10-K, which has been filed with
the Securities and Exchange Commission, as updated by its
subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. AbbVie undertakes no
obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking
statements as a result of subsequent events or developments, except
as required by law.
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SOURCE AbbVie