Print“This collaboration further strengthens Ipsen’s position in biotechnology as a major player focused on the discovery and development of therapeutic toxins to provide innovative therapies for patients with serious neurologic disorders.”
French pharma Ipsen is making a strategic push into the field of engineered botulinum toxins as potential therapeutic candidates in two separate but complementary deals—the acquisition of partner Syntaxin and a research collaboration with Harvard Medical School.
Ipsen, which already had a 10 percent stake in Syntaxin, will pay up to $207 million for the remainder of the privately held UK-based biotech. Ipsen will pay $37 million (€28 million) upfront and $170 million (€130 million) or more in contingent payments based on the achievement of development and commercial milestones. Most of the milestone payments are tied to Syntaxin’s lead molecule currently in mid-stage clinical testing.
Syntaxin, a specialist in botulinum toxin engineering with 75 patents and more than 130 patents pending, and Ipsen entered into a collaboration in 2010 that rapidly expanded into a strategic alliance to explore the discovery and development of new compounds based on recombinant botulinum toxins. Ipsen will keep Syntaxin’s research laboratories in Abingdon as the bioengineering center for the combined company. Keith Foster and John Chaddock, Syntaxin’s co-founders, will join Ipsen to help it build a strong toxin platform across Ipsen’s therapeutic focus areas of neurology, endocrinology, and urological cancers.
“Our established and productive collaboration with Ipsen can now be fully exploited to bring new medicines to the market in a number of therapeutic areas,” says Melanie Lee, CEO of Syntaxin.
In conjunction with its deal to acquire Syntaxin, Ipsen said it has begun a research and development collaboration on novel engineered botulinum toxins with Harvard Medical School focused on therapeutics for serious neurologic diseases. The collaboration will combine Ipsen’s drug discovery and pharmaceutical R&D expertise with Harvard’s discovery platform and botulinum toxin engineering expertise.
Ipsen will fund Harvard researchers for at least three years and will have exclusive global rights on any candidate recombinant toxin stemming from the collaboration, at which time it will take responsibility for further development and pay associated upfront, milestone and royalty fees to Harvard.
“This collaboration further strengthens Ipsen’s position in biotechnology as a major player focused on the discovery and development of therapeutic toxins to provide innovative therapies for patients with serious neurologic disorders,” says Claude Bertrand, chief scientific officer at Ipsen.
Both deals are part of Ipsen’s strategy to triple operating income by 2020, noted Ipsen CEO Marc De Garidel during a conference call after the deal was announced. The pharma noted that there is significant room for innovation in the botulinum toxin market, which is expected to reach $4 billion by 2017, as there are a limited number of players and high barriers to entry. The specialty pharma hopes its acquisition of Syntaxin and its complementary research agreement with Harvard will facilitate its dominance in the space.
July 17, 2013
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-ipsen_acquires_syntaxin_strikes_rd_deal_with_harvard.html
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