Close to two years after AbbVie handed over $48 million for the rights to Ose Immunotherapeutics’ inflammation drug, the Big Pharma now wants the French biotech to keep an eye on the asset for a while longer.
Under their original deal penned in February 2024, AbbVie secured the exclusive global license to develop, manufacture and commercialize a preclinical anti-ChemR23 monoclonal antibody dubbed OSE-230.
ChemR23, a G-protein coupled receptor, is expressed by various immune cells and plays a role in starting and ending inflammation. In preclinical tests, Ose had shown targeting ChemR23 affects the activity of macrophages and neutrophils in ways that may accelerate the resolution of acute inflammation.
AbbVie saw promise in the approach, with the pharma’s global head of discovery research Jonathon Sedgwick, Ph.D., describing ChemR23 agonism at the time as “a novel mechanism-of-action to treat chronic inflammation” and outlining plans to apply the company’s expertise in immunology to the development of OSE-230.
Monday morning, Ose disclosed that the two companies had revised their agreement so that the biotech takes back responsibility for preclinical development as well as the initial phase 1 study of OSE-230, which is now called ABBV-230.
Ose will now be covering the costs of this initial development—which the biotech noted would be “contingent upon securing adequate funding.” The company ended the first half of the year with 25.4 million euros ($29.6 million) in the bank.
Once Ose has completed the phase 1 study, AbbVie still has the rights to take up ABBV-230 to develop further and then commercialize.
The original deal saw Ose in line for $665 million in milestone payments. Today’s tweaks to the deal mean the biotech will no longer be eligible for a planned milestone payment tied to the launch of a phase 1 study. However, the milestones will continue as planned should AbbVie then decide to take ABBV-230 any further.
Ose framed the change to the deal in a positive light, claiming it “reflects both parties’ continued enthusiasm for the potential of ABBV-230 and aligns development responsibilities with each company’s core strengths.”
“The overall value of our collaboration with AbbVie for ABBV-230 remains unchanged,” Ose CEO Marc Le Bozec said in the Dec. 8 release.
“Assuming leadership of early-stage development enables OSE to accelerate progress on this innovative program while leveraging our core immunology expertise,” Le Bozec added. “The restructured agreement reflects the value we’ve built and our shared commitment to advancing transformative therapies for chronic inflammatory diseases.”