Sosei Heptares and AbbVie ink collaboration on inflammatory diseases research

25 June 2020

Shares of Japanese firm Sosei Group (TYO: 4565) closed up 12.4% at 1,877 yen today, after it announced an exclusive discovery collaboration and option-to-license agreement by its Sosei Heptares unit with US pharma major AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) to discover, develop and commercialize novel medicines that modulate G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) targets of interest to AbbVie.

The collaboration will initially focus on discovery of novel small molecules targeting inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.

Sosei Heptares, which signed a string of licensing deals last year, will apply its proprietary StaR technology and GPCR-focused Structure-based Drug Design (SBDD) capabilities and fund R&D activities through the completion of Investigational New Drug (IND)-enabling studies. AbbVie may then pay license fees to exercise its exclusive license options and assume responsibility for global development and commercialization.

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