Swedish DPI developer Iconovo announced that Monash University has acquired exclusive global rights for the use of Iconovo’s ICOone single dose DPI for delivery of Monash’s inhaled oxytocin for the prevention of postpartum hemorrhage. The agreement includes €900,000 in milestone payments, as well as royalties paid for 20 years after launch of the product. Successful completion of a Phase 1 trial planned for 2021 will trigger the first of three milestone payments.
GSK has partnered with Monash on development of the inhaled oxytocin since 2014; in March 2019, Monash announced that it had signed a research agreement with Janssen Pharmaceutica for support of the project. Recently, Monash signed an agreement with inhaled drug CDMO Vectura for early development of the DPI for Phase 1 clinical trials on a fee-for-service basis.
Monash University Professor Michelle McIntosh said, “This is an exciting opportunity to expand this collaboration between industry and academia to develop an important healthcare innovation that aims to address a critical unmet medical need. There is a massive ripple effect when a mother dies – it’s a very significant burden for these families and communities, and we are committed to bringing gold-standard care to all mothers.”
Iconovo CEO Johan Wäborg commented, “We are excited to be contributing with ICOone and our inhalation know-how to such an important medical innovation. There is a huge need to ease administration of oxytocin so that these unnecessary and tragic deaths can be reduced all over the globe. In this project, we all come together to make great things happen. For Iconovo, this project will broaden our experience to include innovative development and we look forward to many more such projects where we can use our inhalation experience. It sends a clear signal that these innovation-focused partners see ICOone as a promising inhaler for innovative applications. We are very pleased that we now have commercial royalty bearing agreements for all Iconovo’s three platforms.”
Earlier this year, BNC Korea acquired the rights to generic versions of Ultibro indacaterol/glycopyrronium and Seebri glycopyrronium DPIs based on Iconovo formulations its ICOcap capsule-based device in a number of Asian and CIS countries and Amneal took over development of a generic version of Symbicort based on Iconovo’s multi-dose ICOres inhaler.
Read the Iconovo press release.
