Allergan, Polyphor ink development deal

Allergan is busy these days. Yesterday, the California biotech announced a deal with Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, which, among other things, gave Allergan exclusive rights to apaziquone for the treatment of bladder cancer outside of the U.S. and Asia. Today, Switzerland's Polyphor announced it has inked a deal with Allergan that gives the company exclusive rights to develop Polyphor's protein epitope mimetics (PEM) cytokine inhibitors for the treatment of conditions and diseases of the eye. Under the agreement, Polyphor will receive $7 million upfront to collaborate with Allergan and identify compounds that will work with the biotech's drug delivery system, compounds which Allergan will progress through clinical development.

Switzerland-based Polyphor is entitled to receive up to $61 million in research, development and milestones, in addition to royalties on product sales.

"I am delighted about this agreement with Allergan, which is another important milestone for our company," said Polyphor CEO Dr. Jean-Pierre Obrecht. After the scientific proof-of-concept, we now have a first commercial validation of Polyphor's proprietary Protein Epitope Mimetics Technology."

- check out the Polyphor release

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