Abbvie, Genmab Enter $750M Antibody Alliance

AbbVie and Genmab have entered a collaboration to jointly develop and commercialize three of Genmab's early-stage investigational bispecific antibody product candidates, and to research future differentiated antibody therapeutics for cancer. The companies will partner to develop Genmab's next-gen bispecific antibody programs, epcoritamab (DuoBody®-CD3xCD20), DuoHexaBody®-CD37 and DuoBody-CD3x5T4 leveraging Genmab's discovery and development expertise and AbbVie's clinical expertise, antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) platform and global commercial leadership in hematological cancers.

AbbVie will pay Genmab $750 million upfront payment with the potential for Genmab to receive up to $3.15 billion in additional development, regulatory and sales milestones for all programs as well as royalties on sales for epcoritamab outside the U.S. and Japan. Except for these royalty-bearing sales, the parties share profits from the sale of products on a 50:50 basis.

The discovery collaboration will combine proprietary antibodies from both companies along with Genmab's DuoBody technology and AbbVie's payload and ADC technology to select and develop up to four additional differentiated next-gen antibody-based product candidates, potentially across both solid tumors and hematological malignancies. Genmab's DuoBody-CD3 technology engages and directs cytotoxic T cells selectively to tumors to elicit an immune response towards malignant tumor cells. AbbVie's ADC technology allows the delivery of a therapeutic toxin directly to cancer cells while sparing normal, healthy cells, providing for a more targeted, less toxic treatment approach.


For epcoritamab, the companies will share commercial responsibilities in the U.S. and Japan, with AbbVie responsible for further global commercialization. Genmab will book net sales in the U.S. and Japan and receive royalties on remaining global sales. For DuoHexaBody-CD37, DuoBody-CD3x5T4 and any product candidates developed as a result of the companies' discovery research collaboration, Genmab and AbbVie will share responsibilities for global development and commercialization in the U.S. and Japan. Genmab retains the right to co-commercialize these products, along with AbbVie, outside of the U.S. and Japan. For the discovery research partnership, Genmab will conduct Phase 1 studies for these programs. AbbVie retains the right to opt-in to program development.