Celgene purchases rights to Crohn’s disease drug

Celgene has acquired the rights to a promising late-stage drug therapy for the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders from Ireland's Nogra Pharma.

The global licence agreement with the Dublin-based firm will see Celgene develop and commercialise the compound GED-0301, an oral antisense DNA oligonucleotide-targeting Smad7 mRNA, for the treatment of moderate-to-severe Crohn's disease and other indications.

Phase II studies of the drug have delivered encouraging results, with Celgene planning to initiate a phase III registration program by the end of the year based on the data.

Nogra Pharma Limited will receive an upfront payment of $710 million (422.09 million pounds), plus regulatory development and sales-based milestone payments and tiered royalties.

Scott Smith, Celgene's senior vice-president and global head of inflammation and immunology, said: "GED-0301 is a potentially transformative therapy that demonstrated striking clinical activity in a phase II trial for Crohn's disease. It strengthens our expanding pipeline of novel therapies."

This comes after the firm last month received US approval for the launch of Otezla, a new therapy for the treatment of adults with active psoriatic arthritis.