AbbVie Enters into Two Agreements with Umoja Biopharma for In-Situ CAR-T Therapies, Totaling Up to $1.44 Billion

Jan 06, 2024 00:01 CST Updated 00:01

Umoja Biopharma

Cancer Treatment Drug Developer

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On January 4, 2024, AbbVie and Umoja Biopharma announced two exclusive option and license agreements to develop using Umoja's proprietary VivoVecTM platform.Applied to various in situ cancersCAR-T Cell Therapy Candidate Drug.

The first agreement provides AbbVie with an exclusive option,License Umoja's CD19-targeted CAR-T candidate drug UB-VV111This includes UB-VV111, Umoja’s leading clinical program for hematologic malignancies, which is currently in the IND-enabling stage. Under the terms of the second agreement, the two companies will develop up to four in vivo CAR-T therapeutic candidates targeting antigens selected by AbbVie.

Under the terms of these two agreements, Umoja received an upfront payment and equity investment from AbbVie. Additionally, combined, these two agreementsUmoja Biopharma May Be Eligible for Up to $1.44 Billion in Option Exercise Fees, Development and Regulatory MilestonesUmoja Biopharma may also be eligible for additional sales milestones and tiered royalties on global net sales.

Umoja R&D Pipeline

Dr. Jonathon Sedgwick, Vice President and Global Head of Discovery Research at AbbVie, stated"As we continue to strengthen our oncology portfolio, we believe that in-situ CAR-T cell therapy represents a paradigm shift in leveraging the concepts of genetic medicine." We look forward to collaborating with the Umoja team to advance the next generation of in-situ CAR-T therapies, which have the potential to expand the patient population and indications that can benefit from traditional CAR-T therapies.

Umoja's VivoVec^TMGene Delivery Platform Combines Third-Generation Lentiviral Vector Gene Delivery with Novel T-Cell Targeting and Activation Surface Complexes. This enables in vivo T cells to manufacture their own anti-cancer CAR-T cells within the body. This has the potential to eliminate a series of challenges associated with traditional CAR-T methods, including reliance on collecting the patient’s own cells or donor cells, associated time lags, manufacturing challenges of ex vivo cell modification, and the need for patient lymphodepletion.

Reference: Company Announcement