MILAN, Italy, and VANDALIA, Ohio, Oct. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Eurand announced today that it has entered into a development and license agreement with GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK - News) whereby Eurand will use its Microcaps® taste- masking and AdvaTab® oral disintegration tablet technologies to develop a new formulation of an undisclosed GlaxoSmithKline (“GSK”) product.
Under the terms of the agreement, GSK will fund the development of the product and Eurand will receive royalties on product sales. GSK will have exclusive rights in the United States to commercialize the new product, and GSK and Eurand each have certain rights to commercialize the product outside of the United States. Eurand will retain exclusive, worldwide manufacturing rights. It is expected that the companies will commence clinical trials under the agreement in 2006 and apply for marketing authorization in the United States by the end of 2007.
GSK will pay Eurand aggregate payments of up to $42 million based upon achievement of certain development, regulatory and sales milestones. Additional terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.
Gearoid Faherty, chief executive officer of Eurand, commented, “We are delighted that GSK has chosen Eurand for this important project, we believe it further confirms our market leading position in the fields of taste-masking and oral disintegrating tablets. The combination of our Microcaps® and AdvaTab® technologies has received an enthusiastic reception from industry leaders such as GSK and we are currently in advanced contract negotiations with companies in Japan, Europe and the USA for a range of different products.”
About Eurand
Eurand is a specialty pharmaceutical company that develops enhanced pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical products based on its proprietary drug delivery technologies. The company has had three products approved by the FDA since 2000 and has an extensive pipeline of products in development for itself and its partners. The company’s most advanced development product, a treatment for exocrine pancreatic insufficiency associated with cystic fibrosis and other diseases, is currently undergoing Phase III clinical trials in the United States. Eurands’ technology platforms include: bioavailability enhancement of poorly soluble drugs, customized release, taste masking/fast- dissolving formulations, and drug conjugation.
Eurand is a global company with research, development and manufacturing facilities throughout the world. Eurand is based in Milan, Italy, and Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A. with additional facilities in Trieste, Italy and Paris, France. For more information, visit Eurand’s website at http://www.eurand.com.
This release, and oral statements made with respect to information contained in this release, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward- looking statements include those which express plan, anticipation, intent, contingency, goals, targets or future development and/or otherwise are not statements of historical fact. These statements are based upon management’s current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties, known and unknown, which could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements.
Eurand Gearoid Faherty (Italy)Phone: +39-02-954281 John Fraher (US)Phone: +1-937-898-9669 bizdev@eurand.com
Source: Eurand
