AbbVie and Anima Biotech collaborate for mRNA modulators discovery

AbbVie and Anima Biotech announced a collaboration to discover and develop mRNA biology modulators for three targets across Oncology and Immunology. Anima will use its mRNA Lightning platform to discover novel mRNA biology modulators against the collaboration targets providing AbbVie exclusive rights to license and further develop and commercialize the programs. Anima will receive an upfront payment of $42M and may be eligible to receive up to $540M in option fees and research and development milestones in the aggregate across the three targets, with potential for further commercial milestones as well as tiered royalties on net sales. AbbVie has an option to expand the collaboration with up to three additional targets under the same terms as the initial collaboration, which may increase the potential value of the collaboration.