AbbVie buys Nimble Therapeutics for $200M

AbbVie is paying $200 million to snap up Nimble Therapeutics, a Roche spinout working to develop oral peptide treatments in the autoimmune space. As part of the acquisition, the North Chicago-based Big Pharma will also dole out undisclosed interim payments. Shareholders of the private biotech could also receive a potential payment tied to an undisclosed development milestone.

Madison, Wisconsin-based Nimble’s lead asset is a preclinical IL23R inhibitor being developed as a psoriasis treatment. The candidate is also being evaluated as a possible inflammatory bowel disease treatment. The rest of the biotech’s early-stage pipeline includes other oral peptides across autoimmune diseases “where significant unmet needs remain,” according to the release.

AbbVie will also acquire Nimble’s peptide synthesis platform, which is used to discover and optimize oral peptide therapeutics.

Jonathon Sedgwick, senior vice president and global head of discovery research, AbbVie, said: “The addition of Nimble’s pipeline to AbbVie’s existing pipeline, combined with our… clinical and translational expertise in immunology, represents an important growth opportunity. Together, AbbVie and Nimble have the potential to help address the significant unmet medical need for people living with autoimmune diseases.”

Nimble’s founder and chief executive officer, Jigar Patel, said: “With AbbVie’s… expertise in developing and commercialising medicines on a global scale, Nimble’s novel oral therapies will be well-positioned to reach more people living with autoimmune diseases.”

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