Summit Therapeutics has entered into an exclusive licence and commercialization agreement with Eurofarma Laboratórios, granting rights in Latin America to Summit's precision antibiotic ridinilazole in development for the treatment of CDI.
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Summit retains commercialisation rights in all other countries.
Ridinilazole is a targeted antibiotic that has the potential as a frontline therapy to treat initial infection and preserve patients' microbiomes to reduce the rate of recurrent CDI.
In a Phase 2 proof of concept trial in CDI patients, ridinilazole demonstrated statistical superiority in sustained clinical response ('SCR') rates compared to the standard of care, vancomycin. Ridinilazole is expected to enter Phase 3 clinical trials in the first half of 2018.
"Eurofarma's established infrastructure and expertise in Latin America are ideally placed to commercialise our novel antibiotic, ridinilazole," commented Glyn Edwards, Chief Executive Officer of Summit.
"This agreement, combined with the recent contract award of up to $62 million from the US Government agency BARDA, will further support the Phase 3 clinical programme and regulatory development of ridinilazole. These partnerships endorse the potential of ridinilazole in the treatment of CDI, and move us a step closer to bringing this antibiotic to patients."
Eurofarma is a multinational pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Brazil and operations in over 20 countries in South and Central America, the Caribbean and Africa. Eurofarma has a broad portfolio of products across multiple therapeutic areas including a focus in infectious diseases where it markets a number of antibiotics.
"CDI is a serious global healthcare threat including in Latin America," added Martha Penna, P&D Vice-president of Eurofarma.
"Through our interest in bringing innovative products to the region, we were impressed by the efficacy data from the ridinilazole Phase 2 programme and the differentiated profile of the drug. We believe it has the potential to address a major unmet need in CDI, and we look forward to working with Summit to bring ridinilazole to market for the benefit of patients."
Under the terms of the licence and commercialisation agreement, Summit will receive an upfront payment of $2.5 million, and is entitled to receive a further $3.75 million in development milestones upon the achievement of staged patient enrolment targets in the planned Phase 3 clinical trials of ridinilazole.
Summit is eligible to receive up to an additional $21.4 million through other development milestones, commercial milestones, and one-time sales milestones based on cumulative net sales up to $100 million in the Licensed Territory. Further, the agreement provides for product supply transfer payments expected to provide a return equivalent to a high single digit to low double-digit percentage of net sales.
For each incremental $100 million in cumulative net sales achieved, Summit is entitled to a further milestone payment which, when combined with the aforementioned product supply transfer payments, is expected to provide a return equivalent to a mid- to high-teens percentage of net sales.
Eurofarma will be responsible for obtaining regulatory approval for ridinilazole in the Licensed Territory. Summit retains full responsibility for the clinical development of ridinilazole in all countries, and is responsible for obtaining regulatory approvals outside of the Eurofarma licensed territories.