CHAPEL HILL, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--POZEN Inc. (NASDAQ: POZN), a pharmaceutical company committed to transforming medicine that transforms lives, today announced that it has entered into a license agreement with Desitin Arzneimittel GmbH, for the development and commercialization of MT 400 for the 27 countries of the European Union, as well as Switzerland and Norway. MT 400 is POZEN’s proprietary combination of sumatriptan and naproxen sodium, the first multiple mechanism triptan therapy for the treatment of migraine. POZEN previously licensed rights of the same dosage strength of MT 400 to Cilag GmbH International, a division of Johnson & Johnson, for four Latin American countries. POZEN also licensed U.S.-only rights to MT 400 to GlaxoSmithKline, which markets a different dose of MT 400 known as Treximet® (sumatriptan and naproxen sodium).
Under the terms of the agreement, Desitin will be POZEN’s exclusive licensee for MT 400 in the licensed territory and will be responsible for the remaining clinical development, manufacturing, and commercialization of MT 400.
Desitin will make an initial upfront payment to POZEN, followed by milestone payments related to the development and launch of MT 400 in certain specified countries. The pre-commercialization payments will total $3.0 million, $0.5 million of which is due on signing. The agreement will expire on a country-by-country basis upon the 15th anniversary of the first commercial sale of MT 400 in each country, unless terminated earlier. Desitin will pay POZEN a double digit royalty on net sales of MT 400 that increases based on annual sales volume.
“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with Desitin to develop and commercialize MT 400 in the EU, Switzerland and Norway,” said Liz Cermak, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of POZEN. “They have a strong European presence and history of success in marketing CNS products. This is yet another important step in bringing this novel migraine product to the millions of migraine patients living outside of the United States.”
MT 400 has been proven to be superior to triptan monotherapy on multiple efficacy endpoints. In a previously published Phase 2 clinical trial involving 972 patients, POZEN announced that MT 400, using a marketed triptan and an NSAID, provided a greater than 50 percent improvement for sustained pain relief over triptan monotherapy with a similar side effect profile. Sustained pain relief is defined as patients achieving pain relief within two hours of dosing and neither relapsing nor using rescue medicine over the next 22 hours.
About Migraine
Migraine afflicts between 10–12 percent of people, of which roughly three out of four migraine sufferers are women. Migraine attacks can last from 4 hours to 72 hours and are typically characterized by sharp pulsating pain on one side of the head, nausea, and extreme sensitivity to light and sound. While the precise mechanism of migraine is unknown, researchers believe migraine attacks are caused by acute inflammation surrounding selected vessels in the head. The average migraine sufferer experiences the first attack during the early teen years, and the attacks generally continue throughout adulthood.
About POZEN
POZEN Inc. is a progressive pharmaceutical company that is transforming how the healthcare industry addresses unmet medical needs. By utilizing a unique in-source model and focusing on integrated therapies, POZEN has successfully developed and obtained FDA approval of two self-invented products in two years. Funded by these milestone/royalty streams, POZEN is now creating a portfolio of cost-effective, evidence based integrated aspirin therapies designed to enable the full power of aspirin by reducing its GI damage.
POZEN is currently seeking strategic partners to help maximize the opportunity for its portfolio assets.
The Company's common stock is traded under the symbol “POZN” on The NASDAQ Global Market. For more detailed company information, including copies of this and other press releases, please visit www.pozen.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements included in this press release that are not historical in nature are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You should be aware that our actual results could differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, which are based on current market data and research (including third party and POZEN sponsored market studies and reports), management’s current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, our failure to successfully commercialize our product candidates; costs and delays in the development and/or FDA approval of our product candidates, including as a result of the need to conduct additional studies, or the failure to obtain such approval of our product candidates, including as a result of changes in regulatory standards or the regulatory environment during the development period of any of our product candidates; uncertainties in clinical trial results or the timing of such trials, resulting in, among other things, an extension in the period over which we recognize deferred revenue or our failure to achieve milestones that would have provided us with revenue; our inability to maintain or enter into, and the risks resulting from our dependence upon, collaboration or contractual arrangements necessary for the development, manufacture, commercialization, marketing, sales and distribution of any products, including our dependence on AstraZeneca for the sales and marketing of VIMOVO™; competitive factors; our inability to protect our patents or proprietary rights and obtain necessary rights to third party patents and intellectual property to operate our business; our inability to operate our business without infringing the patents and proprietary rights of others; general economic conditions; the failure of any products to gain market acceptance; our inability to obtain any additional required financing; technological changes; government regulation; changes in industry practice; and one-time events, including those discussed herein and in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2012. We do not intend to update any of these factors or to publicly announce the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements.