AbbVie to buy Apogee Therapeutics for $10.9 billion

AbbVie has agreed to buy Apogee Therapeutics for about $10.9 billion in cash, in a deal that adds a late-stage immunology asset to its pipeline as the company keeps rebuilding growth beyond Humira.

Under the agreement announced June 22, AbbVie will pay $135.11 a share for Apogee. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, pending the usual regulatory and shareholder approvals.

The acquisition gives AbbVie control of zumilokibart, Apogee’s lead drug candidate. The experimental treatment is being developed for atopic dermatitis, or eczema, and is also being studied in other inflammatory diseases, including asthma and eosinophilic esophagitis.

Why AbbVie is buying

AbbVie has spent years reshaping its business after Humira lost patent protection and faced biosimilar competition. Its newer immunology drugs, Skyrizi and Rinvoq, have helped fill that gap, but the company still needs additional long-term growth drivers.

The Apogee deal is a direct bet on immunology as a durable growth engine. AbbVie is paying a large cash premium to secure a pipeline asset that could expand its position in inflammatory disease if development continues to progress.

The deal is also AbbVie’s largest in more than five years, underscoring how important management considers the franchise.

The deal terms

Apogee shareholders will receive $135.11 per share in cash. One report described that price as a 49% premium to Apogee’s prior close.

The purchase gives Apogee investors a near-term cash exit and gives AbbVie a cleaner way to add the asset than building it internally. Apogee had recently entered a financing arrangement with Blackstone that helped fund development of zumilokibart.

The asset at the center

Zumilokibart is the key reason AbbVie is making the purchase. The drug is still experimental, but reporting says it is among the more important late-stage bets in inflammation and could eventually be used across multiple indications if development succeeds.

Atopic dermatitis is the first major target, which puts the drug in a crowded but commercially important field. That also helps explain why AbbVie is willing to spend aggressively: the company is buying time and pipeline depth in a therapeutic area where it already has a strong commercial base.

Chronology and market context

The deal had been the subject of earlier reporting on June 19, when the Financial Times said AbbVie was closing in on a roughly $11 billion cash purchase of Apogee. On June 22, that reporting was followed by confirmation that the companies had agreed to the transaction.

Later coverage the same day reiterated the cash structure, the share price, and the strategic importance of zumilokibart. Investors also framed the acquisition as another step in AbbVie’s push to address growth concerns beyond Humira and to lean harder into immunology.

What happens next

The immediate focus now is approval risk and integration. The companies still need to clear regulatory and shareholder hurdles before the transaction closes.

Investors will also be watching whether AbbVie changes Apogee’s clinical timeline for zumilokibart, especially the planned Phase 3 path later in 2026. Another open question is whether the acquisition signals more M&A from AbbVie after this deal.

For now, the transaction marks a large and deliberate bet that immunology can keep producing AbbVie’s next growth phase after the Humira era.