After Viatris’ CEO earlier this year promised to be “opportunistic” about future business development moves, the company is making good on that pledge with a new licensing pact to bolster its cardiovascular portfolio.
Viatris is ponying up $25 million upfront to obtain the rights to sell Lexicon Pharmaceuticals’ SGLT1/SGLT2 heart med sotagliflozin, known commercially as Inpefa, in all global markets beyond the U.S. and Europe.
Under the deal, Lexicon is also in line to receive potential regulatory and sales-based milestones, plus tiered royalties spanning the low double-digits to upper teens on yearly net sales, the company said in a release.
Viatris is now in charge of all regulatory and commercial work for Inpefa in its licensed territories, while Lexicon will provide clinical and commercial supply of the med “at an agreed upon transfer date.”
Lexicon will remain in charge of marketing for the med in the U.S. and Europe.
After a long and tortuous path to approval, Lexicon finally snagged an FDA green light for Inpefa in May 2023. The SGLT1/SGLT2 inhibitor, which comes in the form of a once-daily pill, is specifically sanctioned to curb the risk of cardiovascular death and hospitalization for heart failure as well as for urgent heart failure visits in adults with heart failure or Type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease and certain other CV risk factors.
Inpefa is part of a strong class of SGLT2 inhibitors that also includes Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly’s Jardiance, AstraZeneca’s Farxiga and, more recently, TheracosBio’s Brenzavvy.
Inpefa’s approval didn’t immediately lead Lexicon out of the woods, with the company in August telegraphing a restructuring initiative to prioritize the drug in heart failure—and in a potential future Type 1 diabetes indication—while cutting approximately 50% of its field force by the end of September.
If approved in Type 1 diabetes, sotagliflozin will adopt the commercial moniker Zynquista.
Lexicon expects the project to yield cost savings of around $50 million for 2025 while also ensuring certain clinical programs maintain adequate funding.
Viatris is picking up Inpefa after the company’s CEO, Scott Smith, told investors in late February that the company will continue to be “opportunistic” around future business development opportunities and entertain “all manner” of deals to bulk up its medicine chest.
“Licensing, partnering [and] M&A for in-market assets is something that we’re looking at,” Smith said at the time, noting that the company would also explore “broader licensing agreements,” too.
Concurrent with Smith’s remarks, Viatris earlier this year laid out $350 million upfront for the global rights to two phase 3 candidates from Switzerland’s Idorsia. The licensing pact covers selatogrel for patients who’ve suffered a second heart attack and cenerimod, which is being developed in systemic lupus erythematosus.