Mergers and Acquisitions

* On February 11, 2014, Debiopharm, a Swiss-based global biopharmaceutical company developing prescription drugs and companion diagnostics, and Affinium Pharmaceuticals, a Canadian company focusing on the development of a platform of novel, targeted narrow-spectrum antibacterial therapeutics, have announced the acquisition by Debiopharm of Affinium's clinical and preclinical assets as well as its technology platform.

 

 

The clinical assets include AFN-1252, a FabI inhibitor designated by the FDA as a Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP) which has successfully completed a Phase 2a study for the treatment of acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI), and its prodrug AFN-1720, currently in Phase 1 clinical development. Both compounds are highly potent agents that are selectively active against all Staphylococcus species and strains tested thus far (5400 strains) including all known resistant strains such as methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (VISA). In clinical trials, AFN-1252 has demonstrated an excellent efficacy, safety and tolerability profile in over 250 subjects. The possibility to treat staphylococcal infections with a molecule that allows for an intravenous-oral switch will be a major advance to address difficult-to-treat infections. Through its expertise of molecular diagnostics, Debiopharm will develop concomitantly with the clinical trials a diagnostic test that will allow to select Staphylococcus-infected patients, and increase the success of treatment.

Affinium's antibacterial programs have germinated from assets acquired in 2003 from GSK. Its programs include a broad base of intellectual property: issued and pending composition of matter patents on potent orally available small molecule inhibitors, genes, proteins, assays, crystal structures and combinations of FabInhibitors with known antibiotics. These assets represent a new class of antibiotics with a unique mechanism of action, targeting an unexploited pathway, bacterial fatty acid biosynthesis.