AbbVie

AbbVie Inc. is an American pharmaceutical company headquartered in North Chicago, Illinois. They have produced drugs to treat a wide range of medical issues.[2]

The company is ranked sixth on the list of largest biomedical companies by revenue. It is ranked 77th on the Fortune 500[3] and 108th on the Forbes Global 2000.[4]

The name "AbbVie" is derived from a combination of "Abbott", the name of its former parent company, with "vie", intended as a reference to a Latin root meaning 'life'.[5]

History

AbbVie was formed in 2012 as a corporate spin-off from Abbott Laboratories. It became a public company in January 2013.[6][7][8]

In January 2014, the company acquired ImmuVen, a startup incubated at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and focused on biotherapeutics to treat cancer, infectious disease, and autoimmune disorders.[9]

In September 2014, AbbVie and Infinity Pharmaceuticals entered into a collaboration to develop and commercialize duvelisib, Infinity's PI3K inhibitor for the treatment of patients with cancer. On the same day, AbbVie and Calico entered into a research and development (R&D) collaboration intended to discover, develop and bring to market new therapies for patients with aging-associated diseases including neurodegeneration and cancer. California Life Company, operating as Calico, is an Alphabet Inc. subsidiary focused on aging and age-related diseases, and led by former Genentech chairman and CEO of Arthur D. Levinson and former Genentech EVP and chief medical officer Hal V. Barron (who subsequently left the company).[10]

In October 2014, AbbVie ended its efforts to acquire Shire, which would have been one of the largest mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals of that year and one of the largest tax inversions in history, due to changes in the US tax code by the US Treasury; AbbVie had to pay a $1.6 billion breakup fee.[11]

In May 2015, AbbVie acquired oncology firm Pharmacyclics and its treatment for blood cancers, ibrutinib; AstraZeneca had also been bidding to acquire Pharmacyclics.[12][13][14] The Pharmacyclics name was retained, and it operated as a subsidiary of AbbVie from its previous Sunnyvale, California headquarters until the consolidation of AbbVie Bay Area sites in a new building in South San Francisco.[15]

In June 2015, AbbVie and Halozyme Therapeutics entered into a global collaboration and licensing agreement to develop and commercialize products that combine AbbVie's treatments and Halozyme's ENHANZE drug-delivery technology, this was terminated in November 2016.[16]

In February 2016, AbbVie and Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Synlogic announced a multi-year R&D collaboration. Synlogic is a synthetic biology company built on research from the labs of James Collins and Tim Lu at MIT. As part of the collaboration, AbbVie is getting worldwide rights to Synlogic's probiotic-based technology for treating inflammatory bowel disease, and the research teams will focus on Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.[17]

In April 2016, the company announced it would acquire Stemcentrx for up to $9.8 billion.[18] A day later, the company announced an expansion of a two and a half-year-old cystic fibrosis deal with Galapagos NV, potentially doubling milestone payments to $600 million.[19][20]

Also in April 2016, the company partnered with the University of Chicago to investigate several areas of oncology: breast, lung, prostate, colorectal and hematological cancers.[21]

Also in April 2016, the company announced it would co-commercialize Argenx's preclinical immunotherapy, ARGX-115. ARGX-115 is a first-in-class immunotherapy targeting GARP (glycoprotein A repetitions predominant), a membrane protein believed to enhance the immunosuppressive effects of T cells.[22] The company also announced a deal to co-develop/commercialize at least one of CytomX Probody's conjugates against CD71 (transferrin receptor 1).[23]

In June 2019, AbbVie announced it would acquire Irish-based Allergan plc for about $63 billion; however the transaction was not structured as a tax inversion; AbbVie remained legally domiciled in the U.S. for tax purposes.[24][25] To gain FTC approval, the company divested Allergan's late-stage gastrointestinal candidate brazikumab to AstraZeneca as well as two pancreatic replacement enzymes, Zenpep and Viokace, to Nestlé.[26][27]

In July 2019, the company announced it would acquire Mavupharma, boosting its cancer drug pipeline.[28][29]

In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, AbbVie announced plans to evaluate the Kaletra/Aluvia HIV medicine as possible COVID-19 treatment. The company entered into various partnerships with health authorities in different countries to investigate the efficacy of the medication.[30] However, the first non-blinded, randomized trial found the drug not useful to treat severe COVID-19.[31] The Israeli government announced that it would force AbbVie to license its patents for Kaletra, the brand name of lopinavir/ritonavir, a fixed dose combination medication for the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS which was also thought to have some applicability to fighting COVID-19. In response, AbbVie announced that it would cease enforcing its patents on the drug entirely.[32]

In May 2021, Allergan Aesthetics announced the acquisition of Soliton.[33] In June, Abbvie acquired TeneoOne and its lead compound TNB-383B. The compound is a BCMA-targeting immunotherapeutic for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.[34]

In March 2022, AbbVie acquired Syndesi Therapeutics for up to $1 billion and its portfolio of novel modulators of the synaptic vesicle protein 2A and lead compound SDI-118.[35][36] In October, the company acquired DJS Antibodies for $225 million, giving it access to an experimental drug for an aggressive lung disease as well as technology to develop certain antibody medicines.[37]

In January 2023, Humira began facing competition from biosimilars.[38]

In February 2024, AbbVie acquired ImmunoGen for $10.1 billion, aiming to expedite its entry into the ovarian cancer treatment market with ImmunoGen's drug Elahere.[39][40] In the same month, AbbVie and Tentarix Biotherapeutics announced the beginning of a long-term collaboration in the discovery and development of opportunistic, multi-specific biological candidates in oncology and immunology. AbbVie provides expertise in these areas, and will also provide Tentarix with option advances worth $64 million for two programs, and Tentarix will provide its patented Tentarix Tentacles™platform. AbbVie also received an option to purchase the software in full.[41][42]

In March 2024, the company announced it would acquire Landos Biopharma for over $200 million.[43]

In June 2024, Robert Michael replaced Richard Gonzalez as CEO of AbbVie.[44] Gonzalez became the executive chairman.[45]

In August 2024, AbbVie acquired neuroscience drugmaker Cerevel Therapeutics for $8.7 billion, in an attempt to expand its drug pipeline.[46]

In September 2024, AbbVie filed a lawsuit against BeiGene accusing it of stealing trade secrets to develop a competing therapy to treat blood and bone marrow cancers related to the growth of "B cells" after BeiGene hired a former longtime senior AbbVie scientist.[47]

In October 2024, AbbVie acquired Aliada Therapeutics for $1.4 billion to expand its neuroscience pipeline.[48]

In January 2025, AbbVie acquired Nimble Therapeutics, a Roche spinout working to develop oral peptide treatments in the autoimmune area, for $200 million.[49][50] In the same month, AbbVie announced a $1.64 billion partnership with Neomorph to develop new molecular glue degraders for multiple targets across oncology and immunology,[51] as well as a $1 billion partnership with Simcere Zaiming to develop an investigational drug candidate for multiple myeloma.[52]

In May 2025, AbbVie entered into a collaboration and license option deal with ADARx Pharmaceuticals to develop a new type of RNA technology for disease areas like neuroscience, immunology, and oncology.[53]

In August 2025, AbbVie acquired Bretisilocin, which is under development for the treatment of major depressive disorder, from Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals in a deal worth up to $1.2 billion.[54][55]

In January 2026, AbbVie struck a deal with the Trump administration to invest $100 billion in its US operations over the next 10 years and lower Medicaid prices. In exchange, the administration exempted AbbVie from tariffs and future pricing mandates.[56]

Major products

The company's major products are: Humira (adalimumab) ($9billion in 2024 revenues, 16% of total revenues), approved to treat autoimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, plaque psoriasis, crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and administered via injection; Skyrizi (Risankizumab) ($11.7billion in 2024 revenues, 21% of total revenues), an interleukin-23 (IL-23) inhibitor also used to treat autoimmune diseases; Rinvoq (Upadacitinib) ($6.0billion in 2023 revenues, 11% of total revenues), used to treat arthritis; and Botox ($6.0billion in 2024 revenues, 11% of total revenues). Its other major products include Imbruvica (Ibrutinib) to treat cancer ($3.3billion in 2024 revenues), Vraylar (Cariprazine) to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder ($3.3billion in 2024 revenues), Venclexta (Venetoclax) to treat leukemia and lymphoma ($2.6billion in 2024 revenues), Mavyret (Glecaprevir/pibrentasvir) to treat Hepatitis C ($1.3billion in 2024 revenues), and Epkinly (epcoritamab), a blood-cancer therapy developed in partnership with Genmab ($0.1billion in 2024 revenues).[1] The company is also committed to product development for other treatments of cancer, neurologic diseases, eye care, and cystic fibrosis.[1][58] The company's pipeline also includes drug candidates for Parkinson's disease including Vyalev (Foscarbidopa/foslevodopa) and tavapadon.[1]

Legal issues

External links