Google Inc.'s Calico life-sciences company and biopharmaceutical
giant AbbVie Inc. launched a research-and-development partnership
on Wednesday that will plow up to $1.5 billion into developing
treatments for age-related diseases.
The agreement will help Calico, run by former Genentech
executives Art Levinson and Hal Barron, build a
research-and-development center in the San Francisco Bay Area to
tackle diseases like neurodegeneration and cancer.
Calico and AbbVie will invest up to $250 million each and have
agreed to contribute another $500 million each, depending on
progress of the partnership. The companies said they would share
costs and profits from the collaboration equally.
Calico will oversee early drug development and the early stages
of human clinical trials for seeking approval from the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration.
AbbVie said its research-and-development personnel will support
Calico staff to identify, design and conduct early-stage research.
AbbVie has the option to manage late-stage drug development and
marketing of any drugs that pass through the early stages of
trials.
Google is the main investor in Calico, which it launched with
Mr. Levinson last year as one of its efforts to move beyond its
Internet search roots into other industries being changed by
technology. Calico has been hiring medical-research experts in the
past year and recently launched a website, but the company has made
few large moves until now.
Mr. Levinson, chief executive and founder of Calico, called the
AbbVie partnership a "pivotal event" that will "turbocharge" the
company's efforts to prolong human life.
AbbVie currently sells the prostate cancer drug Lupron and is
developing potential new cancer drugs. In neuroscience, AbbVie
sells Duodopa for Parkinson's disease outside the U.S., and has
been developing a potential new treatment for multiple
sclerosis.
Write to Alistair Barr at alistair.barr@wsj.com and Peter Loftus
at peter.loftus@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires