Irvine drug maker Allergan Inc. has reworked a development deal with a longtime business partner.
Allergan and Inspire Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Durham, N.C., said late last month they’re stopping work on Prolacria, a dry eye treatment that’s been under development for about 10 years.
The venture isn’t a complete loss for Allergan. The company’s earlier work with Inspire resulted in dry eye treatment Restasis, which dates back to 2001.
Restasis became the first Food and Drug Administration-approved drug to treat dry eye back in 2002. Inspire now gets a cut of Restasis’ sales and other eye drugs that Allergan makes with the formula.
Allergan, which makes wrinkle remover Botox along with skin and eye drugs, had seen Prolacria as a possible complement to Restasis.
Inspire’s reworked deal allows it to focus on developing AzaSite, a drug that treats pinkeye. The company also will keep the rights to Prolacria, though there are no plans to continue the drug’s development at this time.
Prolacria failed to outperform a placebo twice in the last stages of human clinical trials. Inspire then tried to change the drug’s name and adjusted the endpoint of its third-phase clinical trial, but ended up with the same results.
After that, Allergan and Inspire were ready to move on, ac-cording to a report in the Triangle Business Journal, which follows In-spire.
Under the re-worked deal, In-spire is expected to take a hit to its share of Restasis revenue, which is set to decline by more than half next year.
Restasis sales totaled $153.3 million in the second quarter, which led to $11.2 million in royalty revenue for Inspire in the second quarter, up 26% from a year earlier.
In other Allergan news, Botox was mentioned in a recent ForbesWoman Web story on best skin treatments for women at certain ages. Botox’s mention came as a deep wrinkle treatment for women in their 40s.
UCI Stem Cell Research
Stem cell researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have found that human stem cells restored mobility in spinal cord injury cases.
A research team led by UC Irvine professors Aileen Anderson and Brian Cummings transplanted human stem cells into laboratory mice 30 days after a spinal cord injury paralyzed their hind limbs.
Three months after the initial treatment, the mice showed what the researchers called significant and persistent recovery of their ability to walk in a pair of motor function tests.
The work provided additional evidence that human stem cells may be a viable treatment for the 1.3 million Americans who are living with chronic spinal cord injuries, according to Cummings.
UCI worked with StemCells Inc., a Palo Alto company that works on research, development and commercialization of stem cell-based therapeutics, on the study. UCI said that it’s conducted several collaborative studies with StemCells since 2002.
Support for the study also came from the National Institutes of Health and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Study results were published in PLoS One, an open-access, peer-reviewed Internet journal.
Apria Adds Space
Apria Healthcare Group Inc., a Lake Forest-based home healthcare provider, recently leased an additional 110,000 square feet of space at an office park in a Kansas City suburb, according to REJournals.com, a real estate website.
Last year, Apria consolidated several of its billing and collection offices into a central hub in Overland Park, Kan. Apria’s Overland Park operation is part of a campus that’s also home to Sprint Nextel Corp.
The company provides breathing, drug and other treatments to patients in their homes.
In total, Apria has 550 workers, $19 million in estimated annual payroll and a $13 million capital investment on the campus, according to the Johnson County Sun newspaper.
Apria’s consolidation was a visible move to cut costs since it was bought and taken private nearly two years ago in a $1.7 billion deal by New York-based Blackstone Group LP. The company and competitors are dealing with falling government reimbursement for their services.
Bits and Pieces
Cornerstone Healthcare Plus REIT, a unit of Irvine-based Cornerstone Real Estate Funds, said it bought an inpatient rehabilitation facility in Dallas for $14.75 million. Cornerstone’s new property has 40,000 square feet of space and 42 beds. It’s leased to GlobalRehab LP, a Dallas-based company that runs inpatient rehabilitation facilities throughout Texas … CombiMatrix Corp., an Irvine biotechnology company, named R. Judd Jessup as its chief executive, replacing interim Chief Mark McGowan. Jessup formerly was chief executive of US Labs, an Irvine-based division of Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, a North Carolina- based medical laboratory provider … Ossur Americas, a Foothill Ranch medical device maker that’s part of Iceland’s Ossur HF, recently participated in an Irvine conference held by the Amputee Coalition of America. Other exhibitors included Freedom Innovations Inc., an Irvine-based competitor of Ossur’s.
