Structured payment terms continue to remain paramount for successful invasive anti-fungal therapy dealmaking
Date of publication: June 8, 2010
Invasive anti-fungal therapies receive a boost with the announcement that Astellas and Basilea are collaborating to develop isavuconazole. This deal will enable both companies to globally co-develop and co-promote the azole anti-fungal which is currently in phase III clinical development. See this deal illustrated on our Partnering Scorecard
This announcement is similar to the deal by Novoxel and Idevus Pharma who also announced a worldwide agreement for the phase I invasive anti-fungal aminocandin in 2006.
Both deals have been structured to include upfront, milestone and royalty payments. The deal terms for isavuconazole include an upfront ($65 million), development and sales milestone payments ($414 million) plus double-digit royalties on worldwide sales.
The deal terms for the aminocandin also include an up-front ($1.5 million) and milestone payments ($43 million) as well as royalty payments. These deals are similar in their structure despite the aminocandin deal having an overall value of 10% of that announced by Astellas.
This highlights that the underlying payment structures for licensing anti-fungal products has not changed significantly since these deals were first announced between 2006 and 2010. This is in spite of significant differences in deal value and the clinical development stage of the products.
Therefore, structured deal terms have proved to be robust recently, despite ever-changing market influences.
Tim Martin
March 2010