Avanir in research deal with Novartis

Under the agreement, Avanir is eligible to receive over $200 million in upfront and milestone payments. Avanir is also eligible to receive increasing royalties on product sales in addition to research funding of up to $2.5 million per year for up to four years.

Novartis will assume the production costs of developing any drugs created from the research. They will also have the option of funding the research for a further two years after the original agreement.

During this preclinical stage of the program, orally active small molecule drugs that target macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) will be studied as a means of understanding inflammatory diseases. It is hoped the first product may reach the clinic by 2006.

Avanir’s small molecule research targets MIF, a pro-inflammatory cytokine that is thought to play a critical role in the pathology of disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and inflammatory bowel disease.

It is thought MIF is an important regulator of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), macrophage migration, and the anti-inflammatory steroid response. Because MIF is positioned early in the inflammation cascade, regulating its function may have important therapeutic consequences.