Suzhou Zelgen Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd.

iStock, vzphotos Primarily known as an immunology and neuroscience company, AbbVie wanted to put the biopharma world on notice during its J.P. Morgan presentation: its oncology portfolio is underappreciated. This week, the Illinois-based company dove into the sizzling PD-1/VEGF space with a licensing deal with China-based RemeGen. It’s a poorly kept secret in biopharma that AbbVie intends to become the leading neuroscience company in the near future. It was a point the Illinois-based behemoth reiterated during its J.P. Morgan presentation on Wednesday. “We anticipate being the largest neuroscience player in the industry soon,” Scott Reents, the company’s chief financial officer, said during the presentation. But this wasn’t the only point the company wanted to highlight. “And then the oncology pipeline is something we’re also very excited about that probably isn’t as appreciated as we’d like it to be,” Reents said. AbbVie took significant strides earlier this week to drive this point home, kicking off JPM26 with a licensing deal potentially worth nearly $5 billion for ex-China rights to RemeGen’s PD-1/VEGF bispecific. The pact—which will see AbbVie front $650 million—puts the company squarely in the middle of the hottest new trend in immuno-oncology, on which peers Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer and Merck have collectively bet more than $20 billion biobucks. “We feel that can be a very nice complement to our c-MET franchise,” Reents said. AbbVie’s Emrelis, a c-Met-directed antibody and microtubule inhibitor conjugate, was approved by the FDA last May for patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with high c-Met protein overexpression. When asked about AbbVie’s overall approach to oncology R&D, Roopal Thakkar, executive vice president of research & development and chief scientific officer, said the company has “a very strong pipeline internally in a very active research group. . . . So we get assets out of that, a fairly consistent stream.” Indeed, AbbVie currently has 18 investigational drugs in various stages of clinical development listed in its pipeline. However, pointing to the RemeGen deal, Thakkar said, “I think you could anticipate from us looking externally for ways to complement the ADC franchise and on the [hematology] side as well.” The RemeGen pact is far from the only oncology deal AbbVie has inked in recent months. Earlier this month, the company committed more than $1 billion in milestones for the ex-China rights to a Phase III DLL3xDLL3 T cell engager from Suzhou Zelgen Biopharmaceuticals that could challenge Amgen’s Imdelltra. And heading into JPM, AbbVie was one of two companies rumored to be interested in buying Revolution Medicines and its pipeline of targeted drugs for RAS-driven cancers. AbbVie has since denied the rumor. While AbbVie is a well-diversified company with a significant presence in oncology and neuroscience, as well as eye care and aesthetics, it is possibly best known for its success in the immunology space, and the company’s executives spent half the presentation discussing its megablockbusters. Now three years past the Humira loss of exclusivity cliff, AbbVie provided 2027 guidance of $31 billion inclusively for successor products Skyrizi ($20 billion) and Rinvoq ($11 billion). AbbVie plans to provide 2026 guidance for the two drugs when it presents its full-year 2025 earnings on Feb. 4. Reents expressed confidence in the immunology duo’s revenue potential throughout the next several years. “The runway is really significant still through the end of the decade and even into the 2030s as we go forward,” he said. “And that’s based on a certain way these immunology markets are structured and the breadth and depth that we have with both of those assets.”

iStock, vzphotos The Illinois-based pharma has committed more than $1 billion in milestones to secure rights to ZG006 and join a who’s who of drugmakers targeting the DLL3 protein. AbbVie is paying $100 million upfront for ex-China rights to a potential challenger to Amgen’s lung cancer drug Imdelltra. The deal gives AbbVie access to ZG006, a DLL3xDLL3 T-cell engager that Suzhou Zelgen Biopharmaceuticals recently took into Phase III. The pact, detailed in a Shanghai stock exchange filing first reported by Fierce Biotech , has AbbVie committing $1.075 billion in milestones to secure rights to ZG006. AbbVie will pay up to $60 million in near-term milestone payments based on clinical progress and fees related to licensing options, if it activates the China option. ZG006 is operating in a popular space. Amgen is leading the pack after validating the concept of targeting DLL3 to treat small cell lung cancer (SCLC) with Imdelltra, a bispecific antibody that binds DLL3 on tumor cells and CD3 on T cells. Imdelltra received full FDA approval in extensive SCLC in November, after securing an accelerated nod in 2024. ZG006, also known as alveltamig, is designed to improve on Imdelltra by binding to two distinct DLL3 epitopes on tumor cells and CD3 on T cells. The candidate’s trispecific T-cell engager design could drive efficacy against tumors with low DLL3 expression. Zelgen, also known as Zejing Biopharmaceutical, reported Phase II data in SCLC last year. The biotech saw a 66.7% response rate in 27 heavily pretreated patients. All the patients had received at least two lines of therapy, with most previously taking an anti-PD-(L)1 checkpoint inhibitor. Nearly half the patients had received at least three lines of treatment. Investigators retrospectively evaluated DLL3 expression, revealing that levels of the target were low in 21 of the participants. Zelgen reported a 71.4% response rate in an analysis that pooled the 21 patients with four participants who had medium DLL3 expression. Imdelltra’s approval, meanwhile, was based on a Phase III trial that reported a 40% response rate in 99 SCLC patients who had tried at least two prior therapies. Zelgen’s analysis included fewer patients, all of whom were enrolled in China. Responsibility for showing whether ZG006’s potential edge over Imdelltra holds up in larger global studies will fall to AbbVie, which joins many of its peers in the DLL3 space. Merck, for instance, acquired the trispecific DLL3 T-cell engager MK-6070 when it bought Harpoon for $650 million in 2024. Daiichi Sankyo later paid Merck $170 million for a stake in the program. Other Big Pharmas have irons in this fire as well. Boehringer Ingelheim has a bispecific DLL3xCD3 T-cell engager in Phase II. Roche has a Phase I trispecific antibody targeting DLL3 with bivalent CD3xCD137 binding. Targeting the costimulatory immunoreceptor CD137 is intended to increase efficacy. Roche added a DLL3-directed antibody-drug conjugate to its pipeline in early 2025, also going to China to license a molecule in a $1 billion-plus biobucks deal.

AbbVie began 2025 with a T cell engager deal in China, and it’s ending the year with another one. The Chicago-area pharmaceutical giant is going to Zelgen Biopharmaceuticals for a clinical-stage T cell engager called ZG006, or alveltamig, according to a Shanghai Stock Exchange filing and local financial information websites. AbbVie will pay $100 million upfront, as much as $60 million in licensing options payments and up to $1.075 billion in biobucks. The deal adds to a significant ramp-up in China-to-West biopharma collaborations this year as the East Asian country has become the go-to place for drugmakers to find their next blockbuster medicines. The move echoes AbbVie’s TCE pact with Simcere Pharmaceutical at the beginning of 2025, when it offered as much as $1.1 billion for the multiple myeloma treatment prospect SIM0500. Zelgen and Simcere are just two of the many deals this year for AbbVie, which has been working to bolster its autoimmune, cancer and neuro franchises, as well as to step into the bustling obesity space. It’s signed this year with Gilgamesh , Neomorph, Xilio, Ichnos, Capstan, Gubra, ADARx and others. With Zelgen, AbbVie gains rights outside of Greater China to alveltamig, a DLL3-targeting TCE that is in Phase 3 testing in China. Zelgen is developing alveltamig for forms of small cell lung cancer. The DLL3 protein is a target of multiple drugs, including Amgen’s marketed medicine Imdelltra. Other biopharma companies developing medicines in the space include Zai Lab , Ideaya Biosciences , Merck and partner Daiichi Sankyo , Roche and Boehringer Ingelheim .