A year after Abbott Laboratories paid almost half a billion dollars for rights to bardoxolone methyl from Reata Pharmaceuticals Inc., the pharma has doubled down to lock up access to hundreds of next-generation compounds with the same MOA but different pharmacological properties that may open up myriad new therapeutic areas for the class.

Abbott will pay $400 million up front for Reata's remaining antioxidant inflammation modulators (AIMs), which activate nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 (NFE2L2; NRF2) to trigger antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects in diseased tissue. The compounds are in preclinical development.