By Michael Dabaie

AbbVie Inc. said it is collaborating with Frontier Medicines Corp. to develop therapeutics against difficult-to-drug targets.

Under the multi-year collaboration, AbbVie and Frontier will use Frontier's platform to identify small molecules for programs directed to novel E3 ligases and some oncology and immunology targets.

AbbVie will pay Frontier $55 million cash upfront, and Frontier can get additional milestone payments. AbbVie will reimburse Frontier's R&D costs through defined stages of pre-clinical development.

When the defined stages of pre-clinical development are completed, AbbVie will assume responsibility for global development and commercialization and costs for the programs.

Frontier can share development activities and expenses for some oncology programs through the completion of Phase 2. Frontier will be eligible to receive development and commercial milestone payments that could potentially exceed $1 billion, in addition to royalty payments on commercialized products.

Write to Michael Dabaie at michael.dabaie@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

12-02-20 0840ET