Vimovo image

AstraZeneca sells arthritis drug for $35 million

pharmafile | November 20, 2013 | News story | Sales and Marketing AstraZeneca, RA, arthritis, horizon, vimovo 

AstraZeneca has sold rights to its arthritis treatment Vimovo to speciality pharma firm Horizon Pharma for $35 million. 

AZ retains the rights to Vimovo (naproxen/esomeprazole magnesium) outside the US and the contract sees Horizon paying $35 million upfront for the drug – followed by a 10% royalty on its net sales to pharma firm Pozen, who licensed it to AZ in 2010. 

But Horizon says they are guaranteed a minimum of $5 million in royalty payments in 2014 from Vimovo, and $7.5 million for each year after that providing generic competition does not elbow in.

“The acquisition of Vimovo is a major step forward in our strategy to leverage our business model and maximise our commercial infrastructure and we expect it to create significant value for our shareholders,” said Timothy Walbert, Horizon’s chairman, president and chief executive.

It may not be a surprise to some that AstraZeneca are selling off such an asset, as it hopes to recoup finances lost to its biologics arm Medimmune which snapped-up cancer biotech firm Spirogen in a $460 million arrangement last month.

September also saw the firm pay Merck $50 million up front for a worldwide licensing deal for one its investigational cancer drugs, and then there’s also the $120 million to cover for that it plans to invest into its Alderley Park manufacturing facility in Macclesfield, UK.

Horizon will begin selling the drug in the first quarter of next year and indeed expect it to be profitable in 2014. The company also said it should entertain a net revenue of between $190 million to $205 million that year.

Vimovo is approved for the relief of signs and symptoms of osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis and to decrease the risk of developing gastric ulcers.

Brett Wells

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