AbbVie And Infinity Partner To Develop, Market New Cancer Drug
By Lori Clapper
Infinity Pharmaceuticals and AbbVie announced Wednesday that they have entered a multimillion dollar global collaboration to develop and commercialize Infinity’s investigational cancer drug duvelisib (IPI-145), an oral inhibitor of phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K)-delta and PI3K-gamma.
AbbVie shelled out an upfront payment of $275 million to seal the deal. Thirteen-year-old biotech company Infinity is also eligible for up to $530 million more if the drug meets development, regulatory, and commercial milestones, meaning Infinity could get up to $805 million out of the deal, the Boston Globe reported.
This is a huge step for Infinity, as the 180-employee company does not yet have a drug on the market. The company is already experiencing the benefits of this new partnership after the details of the partnership were disclosed, shares in Infinity vaulted from $4.81 to $15.73.
AbbVie’s multimillion dollar investment does not give the company any ownership stakes in Infinity. However, it will enable AbbVie to foot the bill for several late-stage, global clinical trials of the company’s experimental drug called duvelisib, including studies to treat a range of blood cancers, including a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and a type of leukemia. The revenue also allows Infinity to invest in other preclinical drug compounds to treat other cancers, as well as inflammation and rheumatoid arthritis.
“We believe that duvelisib is a very promising investigational treatment based on clinical data showing activity in a broad range of blood cancers,” said Michael Severino, M.D., AbbVie EVP and CSO. “The addition of duvelisib will complement AbbVie’s emerging oncology pipeline and expand our research into combination therapies to generate improved outcomes for cancer patients. We look forward to working with Infinity to bring duvelisib to patients worldwide.”
Initially, Infinity will fund the trials it conducts and both companies will fund trials conducted by AbbVie. There are also plans to launch multiple Phase 2 and Phase 3 studies of duvelisib in hematologic malignancies over the next several years.