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Treatment programme for CVD to be developed as part of partnership between Novartis and Ionis
Ionis Pharmaceuticals has announced that it has entered into a new collaboration and licence agreement with Novartis, aiming to discover, develop and commercialise a novel medicine for patients with lipoprotein(a) or Lp(a)-driven cardiovascular disease (CVD).
The companies have an existing collaboration for the development and commercialisation of pelacarsen, which Novartis is currently assessing in its phase 3 trial. The new drug is expected to be a potential follow-on to pelacarsen. Under the terms of the new agreement, Ionis will receive an upfront payment of $60m from Novartis and will be eligible for further development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments as well as tiered royalties. Novartis is solely responsible for the development, manufacturing and commercialisation of the novel therapy.
Brett P Monia PhD, Ionis’ chief executive officer, commented: "We are pleased to expand our productive collaboration with Novartis aimed at delivering transformative therapies to patients with elevated Lp(a) who are at high risk of cardiovascular events. This collaboration is designed to leverage Ionis' advancing RNA-targeting platform technologies to deliver a novel Lp(a)-targeting therapy that we expect will provide industry-leading efficacy and dosing frequency."
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