Infinity Stock Soars On Cancer Drug Collaboration With AbbVie

(RTTNews) - Shares of Infinity Pharmaceuticals Inc (INFI) surged 45 percent on Wednesday after it entered into a collaboration deal with AbbVie Inc (ABBV) to develop and commercialize its experimental cancer drug duvelisib.

As per the terms, Infinity will receive an upfront payment of $275 million and is eligible to receive up to $530 million in additional payments for the achievement of development, regulatory and commercial milestones.

In the U.S., the companies will jointly commercialize duvelisib and will share equally in any potential profit or losses.

Outside the U.S., AbbVie will be responsible for conducting and funding of any commercialization of duvelisib, and Infinity is eligible to receive tiered royalties on net product sales, with percentages ranging from 23.5 percent to 30.5 percent.

For sales of duvelisib in the U.S., AbbVie and Infinity will share equally the existing royalty obligations to Mundipharma International Corporation Limited/Purdue Pharmaceutical Products L.P., and Infinity will be responsible for these royalty obligations outside of the U.S.

Infinity will also be responsible for the existing royalty obligations to Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Co for sales of duvelisib worldwide.

Duvelisib (IPI-145) is Infinity's oral inhibitor of phosphoinositide-3-kinase or PI3K-delta and PI3K-gamma, for the treatment of patients with cancer. The drug has shown clinical activity across a broad range of blood cancers, including indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma or iNHL and chronic lymphocytic leukemia or CLL.

Also as part of the deal, the companies will share responsibility for the conduct of specific trials indicated within an agreed-upon global development plan.

For the initial global development plan, Infinity will fund the trials it conducts and the companies will share equally the funding of trials conducted by AbbVie.

The agreement includes plans to launch multiple Phase 2 and Phase 3 studies of duvelisib in hematologic malignancies over the next several years.

Infinity stock is trading at $15.86, up $4.94 or 45.24%, on a volume of 10.2 million shares on the Nasdaq.

AbbVie stock is trading at $54.90, down $0.17 or 0.31%, on a volume of 3 million shares on the NYSE.