Latham & Watkins Advises Anima Biotech on Collaboration with AbbVie

AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) and Anima Biotech (Anima) have announced a collaboration to discover and develop mRNA biology modulators for three targets across Oncology and Immunology. Anima will use its mRNA Lightning platform to discover novel mRNA biology modulators against the collaboration targets providing AbbVie exclusive rights to license and further develop and commercialize the programs.

Under the terms of the agreement, Anima will receive an upfront payment of US$42 million and may be eligible to receive up to US$540 million in option fees and research and development milestones in the aggregate across the three targets, with potential for further commercial milestones as well as tiered royalties on net sales.

Latham & Watkins advised Anima in the transaction with a team led by Bay Area / San Diego partner Chris Hazuka and London partner Joshua Kiernan, with San Diego associate Robert Yeh, Tel Aviv associate Gilad Zohari, and Bay Area associate Billy Wu.