Swiss biotech unloads US rights to Duchenne candidate for $231M

San­thera, a Swiss biotech wait­ing to see if the FDA will ap­prove its steroid va­morolone for pa­tients with Duchenne mus­cu­lar dy­s­tro­phy in the fall, is hand­ing off com­mer­cial­iza­tion rights in the US to Cat­a­lyst Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

The news, an­nounced ear­ly Tues­day morn­ing, grants San­thera a $90 mil­lion up­front pay­ment, which in­cludes $75 mil­lion in cash and $15 mil­lion in eq­ui­ty.

Cat­a­lyst is al­so set to buy rough­ly 14.1 mil­lion shares at just un­der 95 Swiss franc cents each, which is ex­pect­ed to fi­nance Phase IV stud­ies for va­morolone in Duchenne mus­cu­lar dy­s­tro­phy (DMD) and work on ad­di­tion­al in­di­ca­tions for the still in­ves­ti­ga­tion­al drug.

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