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news.Sucampo Pharmaceuticals (SPI), which focuses on the development and commercialization of medicines based on prostones, has acquired Swiss–based patent-holding company Sucampo AG (SAG) and its wholly-owned subsidiary and a patent maintenance company Sucampo AG Japan (SAGJ) from co-founders and majority shareholders of SPI - Ryuji Ueno and Sachiko Kuno.
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The total purchase price is $80m, consisting of a cash payment of $28.1m at closing, and a 7-year subordinated unsecured promissory note of $51.9m.
The acquisition enables SPI to secure control and ownership of the patents and other intellectual property underlying SPI’s current and future prostone products including Amitiza, cobiprostone, SPI-017, and other compounds.
It also eliminates future royalty and milestone payment obligations to third-party companies outside of SPI and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, and removes certain mandatory funding requirements for the development of early-stage compounds that would otherwise be needed to maintain rights to the promising drug candidates generated by the prostone technology platform.
SPI lead independent director Anthony Celeste said in addition to the control and ownership of the intellectual property underlying the company’s products and pipeline candidates, the acquisition advances SPI toward its goal of becoming a global, fully integrated biopharmaceutical company, simplifies the company’s organization and certain of its operations, and further aligns the interests of the company with those of its co-founders and majority shareholders.
SPI chairman and CEO Ryuji Ueno and international advisor of business development and a member of SPI board of directors Sachiko Kuno said they are pleased to consolidate the prostone intellectual property within SPI, which will increase efficiencies within the organization.