DURHAM – A licensing deal for two eye disease treatments means an $88 million upfront payment for Aerie Pharmaceuticals. Another $75 million will follow if milestones are met, Aerie announced Tuesday.
The deal is with Santen, a global firm also focused on ophthalmology.
“We are delighted to announce this development and commercialization agreement with Santen, a leading global ophthalmology company, which will extend the benefits of our unique products to patients with glaucoma or ocular hypertension in Europe and several other global regions,” said Benjamin F. McGraw, III, Aerie’s interim executive chairman in a statement.
“This is an expansion from our initial collaboration with Santen for Japan and East Asia, announced in October 2020, under which we have already successfully completed the first Phase 3 study for Rhopressa® in Japan. Additionally, Aerie will be manufacturing these products for Santen using our new manufacturing facility in Ireland. The ability to utilize this plant for global supply will have a positive impact to reduce the manufacturing cost of our own products in the United States. We have worked hard with Santen over this past year to expand our collaboration and we look forward to Santen bringing these products to more countries.”
The deal involves Aerie’s treatments Rhopressa®/Rhokiinsa® (netarsudil ophthalmic solution) 0.02% and Rocklatan®/Roclanda® (netarsudil and latanoprost ophthalmic solution) 0.02%/0.005%.
Aerie (Nasdaq: AERI) said the deal covers Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, China, India, parts of Latin America and the Oceania countries.
