Agreements

Date: 2017-01-09

Type of information: Research agreement

Compound:

Company: Allergan (Ireland) Assembly Biosciences (USA - IN)

Therapeutic area: Autoimmune diseases - Inflammatory diseases - Gastrointestinal diseases

Type agreement: research - development - licensing

Action mechanism:

microbiome therapeutic. Assembly Biosciences has developed a a fully integrated microbiome platform that includes strain identification and selection process, methods for strain isolation and growth under current Good Manufacturing Practices and a patent-pending delivery system, Gemicel®, which allows for targeted oral delivery of live biologic and conventional therapies to the lower gastrointestinal tract.

Disease: ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndromes with diarrhea (IBS-D), with constipation (IBS-C) or mixed (IBS-M)

Details:

• On January 9, 2017, Allergan and Assembly Biosciences announced that Allergan has entered into a research, development, collaboration and license agreement for the worldwide rights to Assembly's microbiome gastrointestinal development programs. The agreement provides Allergan with worldwide rights to preclinical compounds ABI-M201 and ABI-M301, targeting ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease , as well as two additional compounds to be identified by Assembly for irritable bowel syndromes; with diarrhea (IBS-D), with constipation (IBS-C) or mixed (IBS-M). The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017, subject to customary closing conditions, including the expiration or early termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976.

Financial terms:

Under the terms of the agreement, Allergan will make an upfront payment to Assembly of $50 million for the exclusive, worldwide rights to develop and commercialize the UC, CD and IBS compounds. Additionally, Assembly will be entitled to receive success-based development and commercial milestone payments. Assembly is also eligible to receive tiered royalties based on net sales. Allergan and Assembly will generally share development costs through proof-of-concept (POC) studies, and Allergan will assume all post-POC development costs.

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