Allergan Inc., an Irvine-based drug maker, is adding more potential drug candidates to its arsenal.
Allergan signed a deal with Irvine-based Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. to develop apaziquone, a drug candidate for a certain type of bladder cancer.
Spectrum could receive as much as $345.5 million from Allergan, the companies said.
Non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, which the drug is trying to treat, is a form of the disease that is localized in the bladder’s surface layers and has not spread to the deeper muscle layer of the organ. Some 70% of all newly diagnosed patients have this form of cancer.
Allergan is going to pay Spectrum $41.5 million now. Allergan also is going to make additional payments to Spectrum that could total $304 million, based on achieving certain development, regulatory and commercializing milestones.
Allergan gets rights to apaziquone in the U.S., Canada, Europe and other parts of the world. Spectrum retains exclusive rights to apaziquone in Asia.
Apaziquone is in third-phase clinical trials.
Allergan has made other moves into bladder treatment. In 2007, it got Sanctura, a drug used to treat overactive bladders, as part of its $370 million buy of Esprit Pharma Inc.
Separately, Allergan signed a discovery and license deal worth up to $68 million with Polyphor AG., a venture-backed provider of chemical industry products and services out of Switzerland, according to News Corp.’s VentureWire news service.
Allergan is going to pay Polyphor $7 million up front and up to $61 million for milestones related to research, development and first commercial sales. Allergan is getting the rights to develop cytokine inhibitors to treat eye conditions and diseases through the deal.
Polyphor and Allergan are going to use Allergan’s proprietary drug delivery technology to identify compounds suited for local delivery to the eye. Allergan will take compounds identified through the
program into clinical development.
Polyphor’s venture backers include the Novartis Venture Fund, the venture capital arm of Novartis AG, a Swiss drug maker. Allergan Chief Executive David Pyott once worked for Novartis.
Device Maker Raises $10M
Symphony Medical Inc., a Laguna Hills medical device maker, has raised $10 million from its existing investors, according to venture capital news sources.
The money is part of a $25 million third round of financing that’s set to close in 2009.
Symphony has raised nearly $20 million since it was founded in 2003, Chief Executive Raymond Cohen told VentureWire.
The company is going to raise the additional $15 million through a combination of new and existing investors, according to Cohen.
Symphony makes a biopolymer that’s inserted into the heart with the aim of reducing ventricle size and thickening its wall. It’s designed to treat patients with heart failure.
Symphony’s funding came from a note and warrant purchase. Existing investors that participated include Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., which is Johnson & Johnson’s venture capital arm, Domain Associates LLC, Morgenthaler Ventures and Triathlon Medical Ventures.
Symphony is going to use the initial $10 million to advance its device to clinical trials, while the additional money will enable it to continue its research and pursue follow-up studies, according to Cohen.
Cohen said that Symphony should have sufficient capital to last through the end of 2010, once the additional money’s raised. Symphony expects its treatment to be in late clinical development at that time and is looking to debut it on the market in 2011.
Clarification
USGI Medical Inc., a San Clemente-based medical device maker, got in touch with us after we ran a story in the Oct. 27 edition and wanted us to know that their device TransPort EndoSurgical Operating Platform is not speci-fically designed for weight-loss surgery, but it can be used to correct gastric bypass surgery.
Bits and Pieces:
Sun Healthcare Group Inc., an Irvine-based operator of nursing homes and other health services businesses, named Cindy Chrispell as senior vice president of human resources. Chrispell replaces Heidi Fischer, who left the company. Chrispell comes to Sun from Starbucks Corp., where she was a vice president of human resources Prescription Solutions, an Irvine-based pharmacy benefit management company owned by UnitedHealth Group Inc., said it received accreditations for mail service and specialty pharmacy from URAC, a trade organization formerly known as the Utilization Review Accreditation Commission InSight Health Services Holdings Corp., a Lake Forest medical imaging provider, named Keith Kelson executive vice president and chief financial officer, replacing Mitch Hill, who left at the beginning of November. Kelson previously was chief financial officer of Securus Technologies Inc., a Dallas telecommunications company. InSight also hired Steven King as executive vice president of sales and marketing. King previously was director and vice president of sales with Irvine-based HeartSmart Technologies.
