The crown jew­el of Ab­b­Vie’s big-dol­lar ac­qui­si­tion of Al­ler­gan, Botox is one of the most rec­og­niz­able brands in phar­ma — and both drug­mak­ers have worked over­time to pro­tect its ad­van­tage. Af­ter scor­ing a fa­tal blow to Evo­lus’ chances as a ma­jor com­peti­tor late last year, Ab­b­Vie is now putting the ic­ing on the cake.

Look­ing to set­tle once and for all a years-long IP spat, Ab­b­Vie will put a lega­cy Botox trade se­crets case against Evo­lus to rest in re­turn for a roy­al­ty and li­cense deal for fu­ture sales, the Illi­nois drug gi­ant said Fri­day.

Ab­b­Vie and Me­dy­tox, the Al­ler­gan part­ner re­spon­si­ble for de­vel­op­ing Botox, will re­ceive roy­al­ties and fu­ture mile­stones for US sales of Jeu­veau, Botox’s pri­ma­ry ri­val, and glob­al sales of Evo­lus’ frown-line in­jec­tion, Nu­cei­va.

In re­turn, Ab­b­Vie will drop its Cal­i­for­nia trade se­crets suit, and Evo­lus will hold li­cens­es to keep sell­ing both drugs on Ab­b­Vie’s turf. Evo­lus will al­so hand over an undis­closed amount of com­mon stock to Me­dy­tox.

The deal comes three months af­ter the ITC found Evo­lus and South Ko­rea’s Dae­woong Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals in­fringed Al­ler­gan and Me­dy­tox’s IP in de­vel­op­ing their aes­thet­ics plat­form based on the bot­u­linum neu­ro­tox­in. Evo­lus was is­sued a 21-month ban on the im­por­ta­tion or sale of the wrin­kle treat­ment fol­low­ing the rul­ing — a re­duc­tion from the ini­tial 10-year ban pro­posed by a judge, Bloomberg re­port­ed.

The Fri­day deal set­tle­ment didn’t in­clude on­go­ing lit­i­ga­tion against Dae­woong.

When Ab­b­Vie picked up Al­ler­gan as part of a $63 bil­lion merg­er com­plet­ed in 2020, it ac­quired block­buster Botox as well as a par­tic­u­lar­ly nasty dis­pute with Evo­lus, which has pitched it­self as a ma­jor com­peti­tor. But any po­ten­tial threat Evo­lus may have posed was ef­fec­tive­ly nixed af­ter the rul­ing and would have tak­en a long time to come to fruition any­way giv­en Botox’s big mar­ket lead.

Ear­li­er this month, the FDA ap­proved Botox to treat de­tru­sor (blad­der mus­cle) over­ac­tiv­i­ty as­so­ci­at­ed with neu­ro­log­i­cal con­di­tions in chil­dren 5 and old­er who were in­tol­er­ant to or didn’t im­prove on an­ti­cholin­er­gic meds. It was the 12th in­di­ca­tion across Botox’s aes­thet­ics and ther­a­peu­tic port­fo­lio, Ab­b­Vie said.

With Evo­lus laid low, there are still Botox com­peti­tors out there with some promise. First, there’s Re­vance, which read out pos­i­tive Phase III re­sults for its Dax­i­bot­u­linum­tox­i­nA in Oc­to­ber. The FDA de­ferred its de­ci­sion on Re­vance’s BLA in No­vem­ber due to Covid-re­lat­ed trav­el re­stric­tions that kept the agency from per­form­ing an in­spec­tion of the com­pa­ny’s man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty.

In June, Re­vance and My­lan an­nounced plans to move for­ward with a sep­a­rate pro­gram for a Botox biosim­i­lar.

Ed­i­tor’s Note: This sto­ry has been up­dat­ed to cor­rect an er­ror. Me­dy­tox was a de­vel­op­ment part­ner on Botox for Al­ler­gan. 

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After years as the top spending pharma TV advertiser, AbbVie’s Humira brand finally downshifted earlier this year, ceding much of its marketing budget to up-and-coming sibling meds Skyrizi and Rinvoq. However, now Humira is back on TV with ads for another condition — Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS).

The chronic and painful skin condition results in lumps and abscesses caused by inflammation or infection of sweat glands, most often in the armpits or groin. Humira was first approved to treat HS in 2015 and remains the only FDA-approved drug for the condition. Two TV ads both note more than 30,000 people with HS have been prescribed Humira.