Janssen pays $35m upfront to develop RNA drugs with Isis
This article was originally published in Scrip
Janssen Biotech (J&J) is to pay $35m upfront and up to $800m in milestone payments to Isis Pharmaceuticals to collaborate on the development of three antisense programs to treat autoimmune disorders in the gastrointestinal tract.
The upfront component includes a payment to initiate human lead optimization on the first collaboration target. Janssen has the option to license a drug from each of the three programs once a development candidate is identified. If Janssen exercises its option, it will assume global development, regulatory and commercialization responsibilities. In addition to the milestone payments, Isis is also eligible for royalties on any sales.
"We are the leader in RNA-targeted therapeutics and our innovation and the successes of our pipeline drugs enable us to form collaborations, like this one, with leaders in specific therapeutic areas," said Lynne Parshall, chief operating officer at Isis. "This partnering strategy ensures that we have access to resources that support and enhance our drug discovery efforts and also provides us with collaborators, like Janssen, who are uniquely capable of conducting development, marketing and commercial efforts for these drugs."
Stanley T. Crooke, chairman and CEO of Isis Pharmaceuticals, receives the 2014 SCRIP Lifetime Achievement Award
Isis' product Kynamro (mipomersen) is being commercialized by partner Genzyme for the treatment of patients with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). Isis has a number of drugs in Phase III development in severe and rare and cardiovascular diseases. These include ISIS-APOCIII-Rx, for patients with severely high triglycerides, such as patients with familial chylomicronemia syndrome; ISIS-TTR-Rx, being developed with GSK to treat patients with the polyneuropathy form of transthyretin (TTR) amyloidosis; and, ISIS-SMN-Rx, being developed with Biogen Idec to treat infants and children with spinal muscular atrophy.