AbbVie agrees to four collaborations working to find therapies in oncology, immunology

To find new therapies for a number of diseases, AbbVie is participating in four collaborations and investments with healthcare innovators to develop early-stage research in key therapeutic areas like oncology and immunology.

The Chicago-based company is working with Pure MHC, a biotechnology company in Austin, Texas, to develop peptide targets for use with T-cell receptor therapeutics in several types of cancers, according to a statement from AbbVie. Pure MHC has already developed technology to identify tumor-associated peptides based on work from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. Together, AbbVie and Pure MHC will identify a library of peptide targets for further research.

"We can develop tomorrow's most important therapies by investing in today's leading technologies and scientific achievements," said Michael Severino, MD, executive vice president of research and development and chief scientific officer at AbbVie, in a statement. "Combining the strengths of AbbVie's discovery and development expertise and novel research from external partners will accelerate the pace of innovation into new medicines for the next-generation of medical treatment."

In addition to Pure MHC, AbbVie is also working with Dong-A-ST, a specialty healthcare company in South Korea, to develop immune-oncology therapies dealing specifically with MerTK, a protein that promotes an immunosuppressive tumor environment. The collaboration will examine how MerTK inhibitors work with AbbVie’s anti-cancer agents when treating multiple types of solid tumors.

To battle inflammatory diseases, AbbVie will work with Zebra Biologics, a biotechnology company in Concord, Massachusetts. Together they will use Zebra’s function-based antibody discovery platform to make antibodies that activate biological pathways. They will also identify and give pre-clinical validation of emerging candidates.

In its final collaboration, AbbVie will work with Genomics Medicine Ireland to conduct population research in Ireland. They will sequence the genomes of 45,000 volunteers who have different types of immune-mediated diseases, neurological disorders and cancer, as well as people who have none of these diseases. The mission of the project is to better understand human biology and disease etiology.