Endo Pharmaceuticals announced today that it has entered
into a collaboration agreement with European-based Orion Corporation for the
discovery, development and commercialization of assets in Oncology.
The formation of this R&D collaboration partnership
allows the companies to bring forward a total of eight "discovery
phase" candidates by combining an equal number of programs. The
collaboration also allows both companies to exclusively license the others'
development-ready programs at pre-determined stages and share all development
costs.
"This alliance marks another milestone in the
transformation of Endo's R&D platform," said Dr. Ivan Gergel M.D.,
executive vice president, Research & Development at Endo Pharmaceuticals.
"We are excited about this opportunity to collaborate with an experienced
partner like Orion and look forward to continuing to bring new therapies and
healthcare solutions to payers, physicians and patients. This type of
collaboration fits well into our new, efficient and effective virtual
R&D model."
Dr. Reijo Salonen, senior vice president of Orion
Corporation's Research and Development, commented: "I am very pleased with
the collaboration agreement with Endo. This will immediately extend the
Oncology R&D pipelines of both companies. The agreement is also perfectly
in line with Orion's R&D strategy to focus on risk-sharing
partnerships. We look forward to developing new cancer therapies for the
patients jointly with Endo."
The companies will co-develop the assets coming out of this
collaboration and share all development costs. Orion will have marketing rights
in Europe, including Russia,
while Endo will retain marketing rights for North America.
The companies will pay cross royalties to each other on sales from their
respective territories, and will mutually decide the most effective method to
maximize product opportunities in rest of world (ROW) territories after phase
II and share ROW revenues. With the establishment of the partnership Endo has
exercised its option to license the lead asset in this collaboration discovered
at Orion, a novel androgen-receptor antagonist for the treatment of advanced
prostate cancer, which will be developed jointly by both companies for approval
globally. It will be entering into phase one clinical trials in the near future.