AstraZeneca pays $40m to Pozen for collaboration

AstraZeneca has completed the payment of $40 million (21 million pounds) to Pozen after the companies were cleared following a waiting period for regulatory clearance.

The two companies entered into a collaboration in August to develop a new fixed-dose combination of esomeprazole magnesium, a proton pump inhibitor, with naproxen, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug.

Pozen and AstraZeneca hope to be able to provide new treatments for pain management and inflammation in patients with disorders like osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis. The aim is for the proton pump inhibitor part of the treatment to counteract the risk of developing gastric ulcers associated with the non-steroidal inflammatory drug component.

AstraZeneca may now pay up to $160 million in development and regulatory milestones, in addition to a further $175 million for sales performance as well as a tiered royalty system.

The UK’s second-largest pharmaceutical company claims that the deal helped to strengthen its product pipeline, which has been bolstered further since the company’s agreement with Pozen in August.

Dr John Patterson, executive director of development for AstraZeneca, commented: “This collaboration is further evidence of the progress we are making in strengthening our pipeline of new products.”

He added that the product under development with Pozen meets a “key unmet medical” need, namely providing “good pain relief” with a low risk of gastrointestinal ulcers and favourable tolerability.