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news.AbbVie and ADARx Pharmaceuticals have announced a partnership and licence option deal for developing small interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) therapeutics targeting various disease areas such as immunology, oncology, and neuroscience.
siRNA therapeutics signify a class of molecules to regulate gene expression and the production of protein. Credit: digitale.de on Unsplash.
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Under the agreement terms, AbbVie will pay ADARx an upfront of $335m, and the latter is also said to be qualified for additional payments.
These include option-related fees, milestone payments, and tiered royalties.
AbbVie noted that siRNA therapeutics signify a class of molecules to regulate gene expression and the production of protein.
These molecules are tailored to target messenger RNA (mRNA) that encodes disease-causing proteins, thereby preventing their production.
This mechanism is said to offer a different therapeutic strategy compared to traditional methods like small molecules and antibodies.
The partnership will utilise the RNA discovery expertise and siRNA technology of ADARx, which offers the potential for sustained mRNA silencing.
AbbVie will be responsible for providing its capabilities in antibody engineering, tissue delivery approaches, and antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) to support the discovery efforts of ADARx.
AbbVie discovery research global head and senior vice president Jonathon Sedgwick said: “siRNA is a promising genetic medicine approach for silencing disease-causing genes, but challenges still remain in targeting and delivering siRNA effectively.
“We are very pleased to collaborate with ADARx, leveraging their proprietary RNA technology alongside our antibody, ADC, and therapeutic area research and development expertise to bring siRNA forward as a potential novel therapeutic modality alongside our other established approaches.”
ADARx is focused on developing RNA-targeted therapeutic candidates for a variety of diseases, including complement-mediated, cardiovascular, genetic, central nervous system, and metabolic disorders.
ADARx Pharmaceuticals CEO, president, and co-founder Zhen Li said: “This collaboration with AbbVie further validates the differentiated RNA technology that we have developed at ADARx and has the potential to unlock tremendous clinical and commercial potential across multiple disease areas.”
