Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. Strikes $581 Million R&D Pact With Johnson & Johnson

December 17, 2014

By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Editor

Shares of enzyme biotech Halozyme Therapeutics were up almost 7 percent in morning trading Wednesday, after the company said that it had signed a deal with pharma behemoth Johnson & Johnson to rent its drug delivery platform for $581 million.

Under the terms of the deal, J&J subsidiary Janssen Biotech will pay $15 million up front, with an additional $566 million on tap in milestone payments plus royalties on any approved therapies.

"We are pleased that Janssen, a global leader in the development of novel therapeutics, has selected our Enhanze technology to further augment their development pipeline," Halozyme CEO Helen Torley said in a statement. "This new global licensing agreement further validates our Enhanze platform technology, which we believe may benefit a growing number of patients worldwide by making therapies more convenient."

Janssen will now use its own in-house research and development team to enhance Halozyme’s Enhanze large molecule treatments, with a particular eye on its subcutaneous technology. That delivery system is much coveted by larger biopharma companies looking for ways to avoid intravenous delivery systems and could pay off big for almost half a dozen of Johnson & Johnson’s own drug candidates.

Enhanze uses Halozyme’s patented recombinant human hyaluronidase enzyme (rHuPH20) to break down a skin compound, hyaluronan, which then allows antibodies and other large therapeutic agents to be delivered under the skin until the compound returns to normal within a few days.

So far, the technology has received a lot of interest from larger biotech players, including Baxter , which won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to pair the technology with immunoglobin in immunodeficiency treatment HyQvia, and Pfizer Inc. and Roche .