Date: 2016-11-22
Type of information: Company acquisition
Acquired company: Chase Pharmaceuticals (USA - MD)
Acquiring company: Allergan (Ireland)
Amount: $125 million and additional milestone payments
Terms: * On November 22, 2016, Allergan announced that it has completed the acquisition of Chase Pharmaceuticals Corporation, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of improved treatments for neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease. Allergan acquired Chase for an upfront payment of $125 million (subject to certain adjustments) and additional potential regulatory and sales milestone payments related to Chase's lead compound, CPC-201, and certain backup compounds.
Details: Chase's lead compound, CPC-201, is a patent-protected combination of the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor (AChEI), donepezil, and the peripherally acting cholinergic blocker, solifenacin. Currently approved AChEIs are only modestly effective due to dose-limiting side effects, including diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. Last July, the company has presented results from its Phase 2 study at the 2016 Alzheimer’s Association Conference (AAIC) in Toronto, Canada (Abstract a12446). These results confirm that solifenacin attenuated donepezil adverse events, enabling the tolerable administration of doses of donepezil to as much as 400 percent of the current standard treatment of donepezil. Secondary endpoints provided signals of enhanced efficacy, as would be predicted from increased tolerable dosing of donepezil. Although this Phase 2 study was not designed nor powered to provide meaningful estimates of anti-dementia efficacy, both the ADAS-Cog and the CGI-I scales in the study yielded positive signals of enhanced efficacy. The mean change in ADAS-Cog over the course of the study showed improvement versus subject baseline and, adjusted for underlying disease progression using a multi-study meta-analysis, subjects showed a mean (± SEM) benefit of 2.45 points over 10 mg/day donepezil or 5.4 ± .84 points compared to predicted untreated disease progression. Combined Clinical Global Impression (CGI-I) scores from investigators and caregivers at 26 weeks averaged 3.1 ± .20 points, thus improving by .94 ± .20 points (p < .001; n = 16). The responder rate (as measured by those who either did not worsen or improved over the course of the study) was over 90 percent. Chase Pharmaceuticals recently completed an End of Phase 2 meeting with the FDA. Based on feedback from the FDA, Allergan intends to advance CPC-201 into a single Phase 3 registration study in 2017.
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