November 11, 2014
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Editor
AVEO Oncology said Tuesday that is has entered into a research and option agreement with Ophthotech Corporation that will give Opthotech exclusive rights outside of Asia to investigate AVEO’s promising drug tivozanib, which has the potential to treat non-oncologic diseases of the eye.
Tivozanib is a small molecule vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) tyrosine kinase inhibitor.
Under the terms of the deal, Ophthotech will pay AVEO an upfront option fee of $500,000, and if it elects to continue development of the ocular formulation of tivozanib during the option term, it will pay AVEO up to $8 million in milestone payments.
If Opthotech decides to obtain additional development and commercialization rights to tivozanib and products containing tivozanib for non-oncologic eye indications in territories outside Asia, AVEO would receive an option exercise fee of $2 million and could also receive clinical and regulatory-based milestone payments of up to $50 million, as well as sales-based milestone payments of up to $45 million and royalties.
A percentage of all upfront, milestone and royalty payments received by AVEO are due to Kyowa Hakko Kirin as a sublicensing fee. AVEO executives were delighted by the deal on Tuesday.
“This agreement is another example of our execution against AVEO’s key strategic objective of advancing our pipeline assets through external resources and expertise,” said Tuan Ha-Ngoc, president and chief executive officer of AVEO.
“We believe the unique properties of tivozanib make it an ideal VEGF inhibitor for potential ocular use, and we are encouraged by Ophthotech’s interest in exploring this potential,” he said. “This agreement could enable us to realize value for tivozanib in an indication outside of cancer, while retaining oncology rights for further development through additional potential partnerships.”
AVEO Oncology develops targeted therapies for patients with cancer. Its proprietary Human Response Platform is designed to treat and provide palliative care for oncology therapies, as well as study related disease biology.
