Costa Mesa-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals International and a partner said Wednesday they are selling the worldwide rights to a hepatitis B drug to Schering-Plough Corp.
The deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter, calls for Schering-Plough to pay $19.2 million to Valeant for the rights to pradefovir.
In 2000, Valeant licensed the drug from Metabasis Therapeutics Inc. San Diego-based Metabasis will get $1.8 million from Schering-Plough.
Valeant stands to make another $65 million in additional fees from the deal and will receive royalties from Schering-Plough for any product that makes it to market.
Pradefovir showed in mid-stage clinical trials that it reduced the viral load, or the amount of hepatitis B in a patient.
Hepatitis B is a liver disease that can lead to complications like cirrhosis and primary liver cancer, and eventually death. About 2 billion people are estimated to have the virus, and some 400 million of those are chronically infected.
