Apparently, thrice is nice for Boehringer Ingelheim, which has now announced a trio of deals this week. Friday’s tie-up involves €410 million ($449 million) for Kyowa Kirin to work on fibro-inflammatory diseases.
Few details were provided on the program that Boehringer will now pick up but Kyowa Kirin’s Chief Medical Officer Takeyoshi Yamashita, Ph.D., said the compound was developed in-house by the Japanese pharma company, according to a Friday release (PDF).
The deal terms were not broken down, but the total consideration includes an upfront payment, success-based development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments, and royalties on sales. Examples of fibro-inflammatory diseases include systemic sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease and lung fibrosis.
The Kyowa Kirin deal is Boehringer’s smallest of the week and the third in as many days. The German pharma signed a T-cell anticancer therapy partnership with 3T Biosciences on Thursday, which could hit $538.5 million altogether.
And on Wednesday, Boehringer announced plans to use RNA to treat metabolic-associated steatohepatitis in a pact with Suzhou Ribo Life Science and Ribocure Pharmaceuticals. The deal could eventually reach $2 billion in biobucks.
Praxis Precision Medicines is also heading to Asia for its next partnership in a deal with Tenacia Biotechnology (Shanghai) Company, according to a Friday release. The CNS disorder biotech has handed over rights to the essential tremor medicine ulixacaltamide in Greater China in exchange for $15 million upfront, a $10 million investment in common stock and an additional $264 million in milestones. Royalties on sales will also be possible.
Ulixacaltamide is a small molecule inhibitor of T-type calcium channels designed to block abnormal neuronal burst firing in the Cerebello-Thalamo-Cortical, which transmits information between the cerebellum and thalamus.