Shares of the small French biotech NicOx shot through the roof this morning after it announced a pact worth up to $385.8 million to develop new eye treatments with Pfizer. Paris-based NicOx develops nitric oxide-releasing therapies that are intended to be better than traditional treatments. At one point, its shares were up 85 percent. NicOx will earn €23 million in the first year, with €15 million coming as an equity investment. Pfizer gains the exclusive rights to NicOx's technology in ophthalmology and will pay more than €300 million in milestones for successful development projects. NicOx also announced that it had recorded promising pre-clinical data from a joint project with Pfizer for glaucoma.
"We believe NicOx' nitric oxide-donating technology has the potential to generate promising new drug candidates for a broad range of eye diseases, a number of which currently have no effective treatment," said Martin Mackay, Pfizer's senior vice-president, worldwide research and technology.
- here's the report from AFX