AbbVie and Infinity sign cancer deal
pharmafile | September 4, 2014 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | AbbVie, IPI-145, blood cancer, duvelisib, infinity
AbbVie has partnered with US company Infinity Pharmaceuticals to develop and commercialise the latter firm’s blood cancer treatment duvelisib (IPI-145).
Infinity will receive an upfront payment of $275 million and could receive an additional $530 million for reaching certain milestones under the terms of the deal. This includes up to $405 million for successful development and regulatory approval.
The two companies will jointly commercialise and share profits of duvelisib in the US, while AbbVie alone will commercialise the drug in other markets – although Infinity will be eligible to receive double-digit royalties on net product sales outside the US.
Duvelisib, Infinity’s only clinical-stage asset, is an oral inhibitor of the PI3K-delta and PI3K-gamma enzymes. It has shown promising clinical activity across a range of blood cancers, including indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (iNHL) and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL).
AbbVie’s own lead blood cancer drug candidate, ABT-199, has been troubled by safety concerns, and this partnership offers a new avenue through which the firm can continue its drive towards an expanded cancer portfolio, despite duvelisib also having faced questions about its safety in the past.
The drug is currently undergoing three trials – the Phase II DYNAMO trial for iNHL, the Phase III DUO trial for CLL, and an additional Phase I trial for advanced blood cancers – to further evaluate its safety and efficacy. A Phase III study testing duvelisib in combination with rituximab for the treatment of patients with follicular lymphoma will begin later this year.
Michael Severino, AbbVie’s executive vice president and chief scientific officer, says: “We believe that duvelisib is a very promising investigational treatment based on clinical data showing activity in a broad range of blood cancers.
“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.”
This ‘emerging oncology pipeline’ also includes the US firm’s recently-announced $1.5 billion collaboration with Google’s Calico to develop new treatments for age-related cancers (among other conditions), its in-development breast cancer treatment veliparib, and its prostate cancer drug Lupron – although Lupron has been performing poorly since coming on the market.
But AbbVie and Infinity will be facing stiff competition as they enter the blood cancer market, as several other CLL drugs have recently gained various levels of approval in the US and Europe – including Roche’s Gazyvaro (obinutuzumab), Janssen’s Imbruvica (ibrutinib) and Gilead’s Zydelig (idelalisib).
George Underwood
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