AbbVie and Richter Collaborate On New Neuropsychiatric Drug Discovery

AbbVie and Gedeon Richter Plc. have announced a new partnership to discover, co-develop, and license treatments targeting neuropsychiatric conditions. This latest agreement builds on their nearly 20-year collaboration in central nervous system (CNS) research, which has already led to the successful launch of medications like cariprazine (marketed as VRAYLAR® / REAGILA®) and the investigational drug ABBV-932, aimed at treating bipolar depression and generalized anxiety disorder.

"There remains a large unmet need for people living with neuropsychiatric disorders, making it imperative that we continue to innovate and pursue novel targets and approaches to discover and develop new therapies. We are excited to expand our longstanding and successful partnership with Richter to help address the complex needs of these patients," said Jonathon Sedgwick, Ph.D., senior vice president and global head of discovery research at AbbVie.

Gábor Orbán, chief executive officer of Gedeon Richter, said, "This new agreement builds on years of successful partnership allowing Richter to further support AbbVie's global ambition in neuropsychiatry and validates the quality of science behind our unique discovery platform."

Under this agreement, AbbVie and Richter will share the costs and responsibilities of both preclinical and clinical research. Richter will receive an upfront payment of $25 million and could gain additional milestone payments based on the project's regulatory and commercial progress and royalties based on future sales. AbbVie will have global commercialization rights, except Richter’s established markets, including parts of Europe, Russia, other CIS countries, and Vietnam.