This agreement between the Big Pharma and Alphabet’s life sciences discovery arm will now be extended for at least another additional 3 years, with Calico advancing projects to the clinic, and AbbVie supporting the early research and development efforts in cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.
AbbVie will have option to manage late stage development of activities following completion of phase 2a trials. Profits and costs will be shared equally between the two companies, with each investing the additional $500 million each into the project.
Until 2022 AbbVie will help to lead commercialization, Calico will be responsible for research and development, with plans to advance a number of therapeutic into early phase clinical trials through to 2027.
Since the two companies began collaboration in the early days after Calico was formed by Google in 2014 researchers have produce upwards of two dozen early stage programs in neuroscience and oncology, and explored underlying biology of aging according to a press release. San Francisco based secretive research and development Calico facility has grown to over 150 employees in that time.
Both companies seem to have agreed that the collaboration has met their high expectations, creating a unique partnership that is culturally and scientifically successful, with the extension enabling further acceleration of their efforts to gain better understandings of the science of aging in order to advance novel therapies, with advanced cutting edge science.
