CAMBRIDGE, Mass (TheStreet) -- Infinity Pharmaceuticals signed up Abbvie as a development and marketing partner for its experimental blood cancer drug IPI-145, the companies announced Wednesday. Under terms of the partnership, Abbvieais paying Infinity $275 million in upfront cash to license worldwide rights to IPI-145, an oral drug designed to blockaa protein known asaPI3K critical for tumor cell growth. Infinity is also eligible to receive an additional $530 million in future cash payments tied to IPI-145 achieving certain developmentaand regulatory milestones. If IPI-145 is approved, Infinity and Abbvie will share marketing responsibilities and split sales and profits in the U.S. Outside the U.S., Infinity will receive a royalty on net sales from Abbvie ranging from 23.5% to 30.5%. IPI-145 is also now known as duvelisib. Infinity is already heavily invested in duvelisib's future with a full slate of phase II and phase III studies in chronic lymphocytic leukemia and non-hodgkin lymphoma either underway or getting ready to start before the end of the year. But duvelisib has also struggled to distinguish itself from formidable competition, most notablyaGilead Sciences' aZydelig (also a PI3K inhibitor) andaPharmacyclics' Imbruvica , both of which are already approved. Duvelisibahas also been dogged with questions about its safety and tolerability relative toacompeting drugs in the same PI3K inhibitor class, although today's Abbvie partnership will likely assuage some of those concerns. Before entering today's partnership for duvelisib, Abbvie's lead blood cancer drug candidate wasaABT-199, which has demonstrated tremendous efficacy in mid-stage studies but has also been dogged with safety concerns. Infinity shares closed Tuesday at $10.92, ahead of the Abbvieapartnership announcement.aInfinity's stock is down 16% this year and almost 40% over the past two years, primarily due to concerns about the future potential of duvelisib relative to its competition. Also Wednesday, Rochea aagreed to supply its drug Gazyva to Infinity for combination studies with duvelisib.
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