AstraZeneca sells commercial rights of two cancer medicines to Juvisé Pharmaceuticals for $181m
AstraZeneca has sold the commercial rights to two of its cancer medicines to Juvisé Pharmaceuticals for an upfront payment of $181million.
A further payment of up to $17m is contigent on sales of the medicines - Arimidex (anastrozole) and Casodex (bicalutamide), which are primarily used to treat breast and prostate cancers.
Juvisé has bought the rights to them for a number of European, African and other countries.
AstraZeneca had already divested the rights to Arimidex and Casodex in the US in 2017.
Dave Fredrickson, executive vice president, oncology business unit, said: “Arimidex and Casodex are important established medicines and we are pleased that Juvisé Pharmaceuticals will now take on the work of making sure patients continue to have access to them. Today’s agreement is part of a broader strategy of reducing our portfolio of mature medicines to reallocate resources towards developing our pipeline of new medicines.”
Arimidex (anastrozole) is an aromatase inhibitor primarily used to treat postmenopausal women with certain types of breast cancer.
Casodex (bicalutamide) is an androgen-receptor inhibitor, used in combination therapy with a luteinising hormone-releasing hormone analogue for the treatment of stage D2 metastatic carcinoma of the prostate.
Earlier in December, AstraZeneca divested its commercial rights to Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate immediate release) and Seroquel XR (quetiapine fumarate extended release) in Europe and Russia to Cheplapharm Arzneimittel GmbH.
And it received marketing authorisation from China’s National Medical Products Administration for Imfinzi (durvalumab) for the treatment of patients with unresectable, stage III non-small cell lung cancer, whose disease has not progressed following concurrent platinum-based chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
Read more
How AstraZeneca achieved a fivefold increase in its new medicines success rate
AstraZeneca records 18% sales growth in Q3 of 2019 as impressive results continue
