Teva to receive global development and commercial rights to Hemtares’ novel CGRP antagonists

Teva will receive exclusive global rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize novel, small-molecule calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) antagonists discovered by Sosei Group’s subsidiary Heptares, for the treatment of migraine.

Teva said Wednesday it had entered into a licensing and drug-discovery agreement with Heptares.

Under the terms of the agreement, Heptares will receive an upfront payment of $10 million, research funding, and is eligible to receive additional research, development and commercialization milestone payments of up to $400 million. In addition, Heptares will be eligible to receive royalties on net sales of products resulting from the alliance.

Michael Hayden, MD, PhD, President of Global R&D and Chief Scientific Officer at Teva, said that CGRP antagonism was a good opportunity to treat migraine.

“We believe small-molecule CGRP antagonists offer further opportunities that are highly complementary to our promising candidate, TEV-48125, an anti-CGRP antibody,” Hayden said.

“This agreement is an exciting development for our CGRP antagonist program,” added Malcolm Weir, Chief Executive Officer of Heptares.

“Teva brings world-leading clinical and commercial expertise in migraine to advance this program based on differentiated small-molecule CGRP antagonists discovered using our novel structure-based drug design technologies.”