Date: 2015-10-09
Type of information: Milestone
Compound: therapeutic peptide project
Company: Boehringer Ingelheim (Germany) Zealand Pharma (Denmark)
Therapeutic area: Cardiovascular diseases - Metabolic diseases
Type agreement: licensing
Action mechanism:
Disease: cardiometabolic diseases
Details: * On July 28, 2014, Zealand Pharma, a company specialized in the discovery, design and development of peptide medicines, and Boehringer Ingelheim announced a new global exclusive licence, research and development collaboration. This new agreement covers a novel therapeutic peptide project from Zealand’s portfolio of preclinical programs. The aim is to develop novel medicines for improved treatment of patients with cardio-metabolic diseases. The target is undisclosed. This marks the second collaboration between Zealand and Boehringer Ingelheim following the first agreement, which was signed in June 2011. The first collaboration is ongoing for the development and commercialization of novel glucagon/GLP-1 dual-acting peptide therapeutics to treat patients with Type 2 diabetes and/or obesity. Under the new agreement, Zealand and Boehringer Ingelheim will combine their research expertise for up to four and a half years focusing on the continued discovery, identification and characterization of novel peptide medicine candidates within the selected therapeutic target area of cardio-metabolic disease. The companies will work together to advance the therapeutic peptides stemming from this research collaboration into preclinical development. Boehringer Ingelheim will be responsible for the conduct of preclinical and clinical development as well as for the commercialization and solely fund the research, development and commercialization of products under the agreement.
Financial terms: Dependent upon the achievement of pre-defined development milestones, with the first at initiation of preclinical development, as well as regulatory and commercial milestones, Zealand is eligible to receive potential payments of up to a total of € 295 million for the first compound, developed and marketed under the collaboration. Zealand will be eligible to receive additional milestones for other compounds advanced. Further, Zealand is entitled to research funding plus tiered royalties on global sales of products stemming from the collaboration. Zealand retains co-commercialization rights in Scandinavia.The new agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim is expected to positively affect Zealand’s revenue and other operating income by a total of DKK 42 (€ 5.6) million in 2014. The company therefore raises its full year revenue guidance to DKK 133 (€ 18) million (from DKK 96 (€ 13) million) and lowers its expectations on net operating expenses in 2014 to DKK 195-205 (€ 25-28) million (from DKK 200-210 (€ 26-29)).
Latest news: * On October 9, 2015, Zealand Pharma announced that Boehringer Ingelheim has selected a novel peptide therapeutic to be advanced into preclinical development under one of two ongoing collaboration agreements between the companies. This collaboration, initiated in July 2014, covers a novel therapeutic peptide project from Zealand’s preclinical portfolio with the aim of Zealand and Boehringer Ingelheim to join forces in the design and development of novel medicines for improved treatment of patients with cardio-metabolic diseases. The biological target is not being disclosed. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies have successfully advanced therapeutic peptides stemming from the collaboration towards preclinical development. With the selection of a first preclinical candidate, Boehringer Ingelheim will now be responsible for the conduct and funding of the preclinical and potentially clinical development as well as commercialization. The event has triggered a milestone payment from Boehringer Ingelheim to Zealand. The announced milestone is associated with a payment of € 3 million to Zealand. The payment does not change Zealand’s financial outlook for 2015, which includes expected total milestone payments of € 21 million.
