Jazz Pharmaceuticals has acquired rights to ADX-N05, a compound in clinical development for the treatment of excessive daytime sleepiness in patients with narcolepsy, from Aerial BioPharma, LLC, for $125 million. Jazz acquired worldwide development, manufacturing, and commercial rights to ADX-N05, other than in certain countries in Asia where SK Biopharmaceuticals Co, Ltd retains rights. Aerial and SK are eligible to receive milestone payments based on development, regulatory, and sales milestones and tiered royalties based on potential future sales.
“ADX-N05 is a strong fit with our specialty focus and continues our commitment to develop and bring to market differentiated treatments for patients with sleep-related disorders,” says Bruce Cozadd, chairman and chief executive officer of Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc, in a release. “This acquisition supports our mission to improve care for patients with serious medical conditions. We look forward to accelerating the development of ADX-N05 as part of our long-term strategy of building a development pipeline and expanding our portfolio of commercial products through targeted investments that offer potential new treatment options for patients, with the objective of creating significant value for our shareholders.”
Jeffrey Tobias, MD, executive vice president of research and development and chief medical officer of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, adds: “The addition of ADX-N05 to our development pipeline is an excellent strategic fit for Jazz given our strong clinical expertise in sleep and narcolepsy. The ADX-N05 Phase 2b results, announced by Aerial in October 2013, demonstrated a robust effect on excessive daytime sleepiness in patients with narcolepsy. Given ADX-N05’s demonstrated wake-promoting properties in pre-clinical and clinical studies, including the Phase 2b results, we believe ADX-N05 could also potentially benefit patients whose excessive daytime sleepiness stems from other causes, such as obstructive sleep apnea, where we also intend to pursue Phase 3 clinical trials. We look forward to discussing our development plans with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and initiating our Phase 3 clinical program for ADX-N05 as quickly as possible.”
