AbbVie acquires cancer drugmaker Pharmacyclics for $21bn

With the acquisition, AbbVie will now have access to Pharmacyclics’ Imbruvic11a (ibrutinib), a Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor used to treat hematological cancers.

Imbruvica is approved for use in four indications for the treatment of three different types of blood cancers including chronic lymphocytic leukemia, mantle cell lymphoma and Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia.

Initially, Imbruvica was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2013 and is the only product to have received three breakthrough therapy designations from the age.

The company said that as part of its worldwide partnership with Janssen Biotech, Imbruvica is currently approved in nearly 50 countries.

Imbruvica is in mid- and late-stage development for additional hematological oncology indications, with over 60 clinical trials underway, including 13 in Phase III development.

AbbVie chairman and chief executive officer Richard Gonzalez said: "The companies’ shared expertise, combined with AbbVie’s broad late-stage oncology pipeline, has the potential to transform the cancer treatment landscape for hematological malignancies and improve patient outcomes and quality of life.

"Today marks a significant step forward in our effort to become a leader in oncology and meaningfully augment our long-term growth strategy.

"The Pharmacyclics team has built an important and rapidly growing franchise with significant long-term potential across a range of hematological cancers."

Pharmacyclics will now be a wholly-owned subsidiary of AbbVie and will operate from its previous Sunnyvale, California headquarters and it will be lead by AbbVie’s former head of global marketing Wulff-Erik von Borcke.

Image: Imbruvica is approved to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia, mantle cell lymphoma and Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia. Photo: courtesy of Michelle Meiklejohn/ freedigitalphotos.net.