AbbVie to buy Apogee for $10.9 billion in biotech push

AbbVie is paying $135.11 a share in cash for Apogee Therapeutics, valuing the biotech at about $10.9 billion and making the transaction the drugmaker’s largest buyout in more than five years. The deal is a direct wager that immunology can keep carrying AbbVie’s growth after Humira’s long run of dominance, with the company seeking more firepower in atopic dermatitis, asthma and related inflammatory diseases.

For AbbVie, the timing is strategic as much as financial. The company said its 2025 full-year results delivered record net sales of $61.2 billion, including $30.4 billion from immunology alone, while adjusted research and development spending reached $13.8 billion. Skyrizi and Rinvoq have helped offset the slide in Humira, but AbbVie still faces biosimilar pressure on Humira and later patent expirations across other major treatments, making fresh assets in the franchise more than a simple pipeline add-on.

Apogee’s prize is zumilokibart, a novel half-life extended monoclonal antibody targeting IL-13. The therapy is being developed as a subcutaneous injection that could be given once every three or six months, a dosing schedule that could give AbbVie a convenience edge against Sanofi and Regeneron’s Dupixent, which is typically taken every two weeks for atopic dermatitis. Apogee had planned to move zumilokibart into Phase 3 trials in moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis in the second half of 2026, with additional development in asthma and eosinophilic esophagitis.

The scientific case behind the asset has been building. Apogee said on March 23 that 52-week Phase 2 Part A data showed durable maintenance and deepening of response, with 75% and 85% of patients maintaining EASI-75 and 86% and 78% maintaining vIGA 0/1 on three-month and six-month dosing, respectively. That kind of durability is exactly what a buyer like AbbVie wants to own if it is trying to defend a billion-dollar immunology franchise against a future earnings gap.

Apogee had only recently strengthened its own balance sheet, announcing a $1.3 billion strategic financing package with Blackstone Life Sciences on May 27 that included up to $800 million in synthetic royalty financing and access to up to $500 million in senior corporate debt. AbbVie said both boards approved the acquisition unanimously and expects the deal to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to customary conditions. The market response was immediate, with Apogee shares jumping and AbbVie rising as investors signaled support for a deal that looks less like diversification than succession planning for the post-Humira era.