Alliance to Develop New Respiratory Medicines

An alliance to develop and commercialize medicines containing long-acting beta2 agonists (LABA) for the treatment of respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been announced by Theravance, Inc. (South San Francisco, CA, USA; www.theravance.com) and GlaxoSmithKline plc (London, UK).

Under the terms of the agreement, the LABA compounds from GSK and Theravance will be pooled for development. A joint steering committee will be formed to optimize the development of the compounds and their time to market. GSK will have the responsibility to develop and commercialize one or more of the compounds, utilizing its proprietary drug delivery technology. GSK will have exclusive worldwide manufacturing and commercialization rights. Two compounds are already in phase 1 studies.

Theravance will receive an initial US$50 million from GSK, milestone payments, and royalties. GSK will also receive milestone payments based on its compounds reaching approval and launch. "We are eager to develop the compounds pooled by Theravance and ourselves with the objective of providing the next generation of respiratory medicines,” said Tachi Yamada, chairman, research and development, GSK.






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