AbbVie and Calico Announce Extension of Groundbreaking Collaboration

AbbVie and Calico announced an extension of their collaboration to discover, develop and bring to market new therapies for patients with age-related diseases, including neurodegeneration and cancer.

Calico is the Alphabet-backed life sciences company that is led by former Genentech chairman and CEO Arthur D. Levinson, Ph.D. With more than 150 employees, Calico has established a world-class research and development facility in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Working together with AbbVie, Calico pursues discovery-stage research and development. AbbVie provides scientific and clinical development support and will lend its commercial expertise to lead future development and commercialization activities. Since 2014, the collaboration between the two companies has produced more than two dozen early-stage programs addressing disease states across oncology and neuroscience and yielded new insights into the biology of aging.

“We’ve built a successful collaboration – both scientifically and culturally – that is advancing cutting-edge science,” said Michael Severino, M.D., executive vice president, research and development, chief scientific officer, AbbVie. “Calico has attracted an outstanding team of world-class scientists and the extension of this collaboration allows us to further build on the research we’ve done to identify transformative treatment options for patients with age-related diseases.”

“Our collaboration with AbbVie has fully met our high expectations,” said Dr. Levinson. “Our initial agreement created a unique partnership and this extension will accelerate further our efforts to understand the science of aging to advance novel therapies for patients.”

Under the terms of the agreement, the collaboration between the two companies is now extended for an additional three years. Calico will be responsible for research and early development until 2022 and will advance collaboration projects through Phase 2a through 2027. AbbVie will continue to support Calico in its early R&D efforts and, following completion of Phase 2a studies, will have the option to manage late-stage development and commercial activities. Both parties will share costs and profits equally. AbbVie and Calico will each commit to contribute an additional $500 million to the collaboration.