AbbVie adding $500M in anti-aging partnership with Google subsidiary

Photo/Grant Welker The Worcester home of AbbVie, Inc., which is headquartered in Illinois.

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By Grant Welker

AbbVie, a biopharmeceutical company with a major presence in Worcester, is contributing $500 million to continue an anti-aging initiative with a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet.

AbbVie and Calico, a company focusing on aging research and therapeutics, announced the extension of their partnership on Tuesday. Calico is committing another $500 million.

The two companies agreed to extend their collaboration for another three years. The partnership began in 2014 and has produced more than two dozen early-stage programs addressing oncology, neuroscience and other aspects of aging, according to the companies.

AbbVie provides scientific and clinical development support and lends its commercial expertise to the partnership, while Calico pursues early-stage research and development.

AbbVie, which is based in North Chicago, Ill., employs around 900 people at its Worcester bioresearch facility.

In other AbbVie news last week, the Federal Trade Commission ordered the company to pay $448 million in relief to consumers who the FTC says were overcharged for a testosterone replacement drug, AndroGel.

It is the highest monetary award ordered in a litigated FTC antitrust case, the federal agency said.

A U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania ruled AbbVie wrongly kept a monopoly over AndroGel using sham litigation, the FTC said. The FTC first filed a legal complaint in 2014 saying AbbVie and partner Besins Healthcare Inc. of Thailand filed baseless patent infringement lawsuits against potential generic competitors.

MarketWatch reported Friday that AbbVie plans to appeal the ruling.