Ikaria inks $285M pact for heart attack therapy

Israel's BiolineRx has licensed its early-stage BL-1040 heart attack therapy to Ikaria for $285 million in upfront fees and milestones. But Israel's chief scientist will have to sign off on the pact as the country backed the development program in an incubator project.

BL-1040 recently wrapped a small Phase I/II clinical trial with positive results. It's a liquid polymer that is administered to damaged heart muscle following acute myocardial infarction. The polymer creates a ‘scaffold' that helps the damaged muscle heal and is then excreted within six weeks of injection.

"BL-1040 could revolutionize the treatment of patients recovering from a massive heart attack," said Professor Jonathon Leor, the inventor of the therapy and director of the Neufeld Cardiac Research Institute, after the trial.

BiolineRx retains the right to produce the drug in Israel and will get royalties ranging from 11 percent to 15 percent of sales.

- read the report from Reuters