SkyePharma collaboration ‘will yield dividends’

SkyePharma has said it expects to receive an additional income stream through royalties after an approval application was made for a drug it helped to create.

The UK-based company said it expects to receive single-digit royalties for the sales of a controlled-release formulation zileuton, the asthma drug developed by Abbott with the help of SkyePharma’s Geomatrix technology.

After Abbott completed phase III trials for the product, it was licensed out to Critical Therapeutics, described by SkyePharma as a “partner”, who will pay SkyePharma royalties for US sales of the controlled-release zileuton product.

SkyePharma will also manufacture the product in a facility in Lyon, France.

The company’s chief executive, Frank Condella, remarked: “We are pleased that this successful collaboration with CTI has now culminated in the filing of this version of zileuton, another example of the power of our Geomatrix technology.”

He added: “Our partner expects this product to reach the market in the second half of next year when it will become another source of royalty and manufacturing income for SkyePharma.”

Although the company recorded a 50.9 million pound loss in 2005, Dr Jerry Karabelas, non-executive chairman, said it had been a “difficult” year but the company could make a return to profitability in the short-term.

SkyePharma develops drugs using delivery technologies to provide easier-to-use and more effective treatments. These technologies can cover 95 per cent of the pharmaceutical industry’s platform needs, the company stated.

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