September 14, 2011 -
Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan) announced that it has entered into a license agreement with
LES LABORATOIRES SERVIER (Suresnes, France) to exclusively develop and commercialize in Japan Ivabradine (generic name) which is on the overseas market* for the treatment of stable angina and currently under review by European Medicines Agency (EMA) of marketing approval application for the additional indication of chronic heart failure (CHF).
Ono will pay to Servier 20 million euros as an upfront payment of the agreement and thereafter milestone payments based on development stage. In addition, Ono will also pay sales-based milestone payments upon achievement of projected sales.
In CHF, heart cannot pump out enough blood to satisfy oxygen requirement in major organs due to decreased cardiac function. That leads to congestion in lungs or systemic venous which cause various systemic symptoms including dyspnea and sense of exhaustion and daily lives of patients are therefore impaired. It is known that life prognosis of CHF patients are very poor and also that, while higher heart ratemay be increased in order to compensate for low cardiac output, this increase is detrimental in the long term. In fact, it is reported that higher heart rate has been associated with poor prognosis...
[PDF] Ono Pharmaceutical's Press Release -
