Glenmark touts (much needed) $345M pain pact with Sanofi

Shares of India's Glenmark jumped on the news that Sanofi-Aventis has signed up for a $345 million partnership to develop new pain drugs. Glenmark gets $20 million upfront in the deal, along with royalties and a U.S. co-promotion agreement.

Sanofi wins marketing rights in North America, Europe and Japan for TRPV3 and GRC 15300, two drugs in a new class of pain remedies. And Glenmark can use the occasion to mark an upbeat turn for the Mumbai-based developer, which has had to deal with bitter setbacks on programs involving Eli Lilly and Merck KGaA--which returned rights to their development partnerships--as well as Forest Labs.

"Investors have been waiting for such a big deal for Glenmark for the past two years. The news will bring back the confidence of investors into the company's R&D pipeline," Sriram Rathi, an analyst with Centrum Broking, tells the Wall Street Journal. Glenmark shares soared and the news and then settled back to a 3.4 percent gain.

- read the story from Bloomberg (sub. req.)
- here's the report from the Wall Street Journal