Ab­b­Vie beefs up the im­munol­o­gy pipeline, bet­ting up to $865M on a PhII-ready drug — and fu­el­ing a biotech stock fren­zy

Ab­b­Vie’s im­munol­o­gy team is toss­ing $60 mil­lion in­to the pot be­ing wa­gered on the lead drug at Mitch Gold’s lat­est ven­ture.

The Den­dreon founder helped make his­to­ry in im­muno-on­col­o­gy, though not the big mon­ey once fore­cast for Provenge, and set his sights on glo­ry with Seat­tle-based Alpine Im­mune Sci­ences.

Now Ab­b­Vie has ac­quired an op­tion and li­cense deal for ALPN-101, which tar­gets the dual path­ways of CD28 and ICOS. In ad­di­tion to the up­front cash, there’s $75 mil­lion re­served for pre-op­tion de­vel­op­ment mile­stones, $75 mil­lion for the op­tion, $205 mil­lion in de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion fees and $450 mil­lion in sales-based goals.

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