Wednesday, August 02, 2006

AstraZeneca pay Pozen $200 million to take away some of the pain

Poor dusty dry (pipeline) AstraZeneca have signed a deal with Pozen to develop fixed-dose combinations of naproxen and Nexium (esomeprazole) to treat chronic pain using Pozen's technology, the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker said on Wednesday.

Under the deal, AstraZeneca will pay Pozen an upfront fee of $40 million, potential development and regulatory milestones of $160 million, and potential sales milestones of $175 million.

AstraZeneca, Europe's third biggest drugmaker, will also pay a royalty on net sales in a range from a mid-single digit percentage to a mid-teens percentage.

This deal joins others following the debacles of Galida (tesaglitazar) and Exanta (ximelegatran); recent late-stage product failures at AstraZeneca, and reveals the pressure on the company to continue to buy in compounds to shore up its portfolio.

Insider's view: Looking at Pozen's record with GSK's Imitrex this is a long shot to say the least.

Let's hope they get the clinical trial results they are expecting!

It would be an almost 100% certainty that the generic companies have already thought of generic naproxen/omeprazole combos (in this post-Vioxx world).

So the market may have changed in a year or two, anyway.

More.

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