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AbbVie terminated work on the main drug from last year’s $137 million buyout of Landos Biopharma . It’s an abrupt end for ABBV-113, formerly known as NX-13, in ulcerative colitis. AbbVie culled a Phase 2 trial of the drug this week, per the federal trials database. The move was “not safety-related,” the drugmaker said in the trial update. In an emailed statement, an AbbVie spokesperson said the decision was “due to an inadequately differentiated benefit-risk assessment.” The spokesperson declined to say anything about future development “at this time.” The experimental anti-inflammatory drug is an NLRX1 agonist. Activation of NLRX1 is thought to impact “multiple mechanisms” that drive inflammatory bowel disease, AbbVie said at the time of the Landos deal. “This will be a robust Phase 2 with a placebo comparator, and we’ll get objective data from centralized review of endoscopic data,” AbbVie chief scientific officer Roopal Thakkar said in January, according to an AlphaSense transcript of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “If it looks good, [it] definitely would be a Phase 3 asset for us.” The Chicago-area pharma giant bought Landos with the aim of making a first-in-class oral small molecule for the autoimmune condition, as well as studying the drug in other indications, like Crohn’s disease. An oral drug would be a more convenient option for patients. Much of AbbVie’s work in I&I is concentrated on injectable or infused drugs, including the world’s once top-selling medicine Humira, and Skyrizi, initially approved in 2019. It now also markets Rinvoq, an oral medicine approved for multiple inflammatory conditions. AbbVie has staked much of its mid-term future on Skyrizi and Rinvoq, expecting $31 billion in combined sales in 2027 from the two medicines. AbbVie also saw potential in combining ABBV-113 with its other drugs. If ABBV-113 had succeeded, the company planned to test it in combination with Rinvoq, according to Thakkar’s remarks in January. Meanwhile, AbbVie has padded its longer-term autoimmune pipeline with multiple collaborations and two small I&I acquisitions last year for Celsius Therapeutics and Nimble Therapeutics . It’s also working on oral medicines.

Shares in NYSE-listed AbbVie closed 1.7% higher following the deal. Valeriya Zankovych via Shutterstock. AbbVie has agreed to acquire Capstan Therapeutics for up to $2.1bn, adding a “high-risk, high-reward” clinical-stage in vivo CAR-T candidate to its pipeline. Capstan is developing a new type of CAR-T therapy that overcomes limitations with current options. Currently approved therapies of this kind act by upgrading patient-extracted T cells’ ability to fight cancer cells, but this method has financial and scalability hurdles, along with a lymphodepleting chemo requirement, curbing uptake. Capstan’s lead asset, CPTX2309, is an in vivo targeted lipid nanoparticle (LNP) anti-CD19 CAR-T therapy that could solve these issues. AbbVie certainly sees the promise in the drug, paying $2.1bn upfront to take control of the CAR-T therapy alongside other preclinical programmes and the RNA payload-delivering technology used to create them. CPTX2309, being developed for the treatment of B-cell-mediated autoimmune diseases, is already being evaluated in a Phase I study (NCT06917742) with healthy volunteers. A preliminary look at the data from Capstan has revealed strong B-cell depletion – the aim of the treatment is to achieve an ‘immune reset’ by repopulation of healthy B cells. Investors shared positive sentiment in the acquisition, with shares in NYSE-listed AbbVie closing 1.7% higher at $185.62 on 30 June, the day the announcement was made. The big pharma has a market cap of $327.9bn. This is not the first in vivo CAR-T relationship that AbbVie has fostered, with a collaboration with Umoja Biopharma in January 2024. This partnership allows AbbVie to develop in-situ generated CAR-T cell therapy candidates in oncology using Umoja’s VivoVecplatform. GlobalData Strategic Intelligence US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate? Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis. By GlobalData Learn more about Strategic Intelligence “High-risk, high-reward” potential, says analysts William Blair analyst Matt Phipps said in a research note: “While CPTX2309 is still in early clinical development, we believe the acquisition shows a strategic effort by AbbVie to further strengthen its immunology franchise through novel, disease-modifying mechanisms. “Given the stage of development, this asset clearly comes with clinical risk, but given the potential of in vivo CAR-T, which does not require lymphodepletion and has potential for greater manufacturing scalability, it offers significant long-term upside if successful.” Phipps, who described AbbVie’s new asset as “high-risk, high-reward,” said the purchase consolidates AbbVie’s strong trading. The big pharma company has already shrugged off the loss of market exclusivity for its blockbuster Humira (adalimumab) by rolling out Skyrizi (risankizumab) and Rinvoq (upadacitinib). According to William Blair, forecast revenue rate from 2024 to 2029 growth rate for AbbVie trails only Eli Lilly and Sanofi, representing an “attractive opportunity” for long-term investors. Capstan’s CEO Laura Shawver said: “In vivo CAR-T represents a potential new treatment modality in medicine – embodying the transformative power of cell therapy with the accessibility and scalability of an off-the-shelf biologic. This technology has the potential to become a first-in-class platform to treat a wide range of autoimmune diseases.” Interius BioTherapeutics and Umoja Biopharma are two biotechs in the in vivo CAR-T arena that have assets in clinical trials targeting oncological indications. These assets also use lentiviral vectors to generate the cells in vivo, whereas Capstan is using mRNA. CPTX2309 is built on Capstan’s targeted LNP platform to enable in vivo delivery of RNA payloads to target cells. CPTX2309 is made up of an anti-CD19 CAR mRNA payload inside an LNP. AbbVie’s purchase comes just a few days after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed an access barrier for currently approved CAR-T therapies, regarded as a boost to the sector’s outlook. Cell & Gene Therapy coverage on Pharmaceutical Technology is supported by Cytiva . Editorial content is independently produced and follows the highest standards of journalistic integrity. Topic sponsors are not involved in the creation of editorial content. Free Whitepaper Navigating cell therapy process development The cell therapy manufacturing sector is rapidly evolving, driven by the need to balance innovative process development with rigorous GMP standards. This eBook, brought to you by industry leaders Cytiva, explores how biotech firms can address common challenges — including minimizing contamination risks from manual processes, overcoming resource limitations, and creating scalable, robust designs. Industry experts discuss strategies including automation, strategic outsourcing, and flexible equipment selection to streamline processes and reduce regulatory risks. To unlock expert insights on optimizing your cell therapy pathway from clinical development to commercialization, fill in your details now. Thank you. You will receive an email shortly. Please check your inbox to download the Whitepaper. By Cytiva Thematic You have a right to withdraw your consent at any time, by clicking here . We may still continue to send you service-related and other non-promotional communications. For more information relating to our privacy practices, we invite you to review our privacy policy . 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