Biogen Idec buys rights to MS pill
NEW YORK - Biogen Idec Inc., the world’s largest maker of drugs for multiple sclerosis, will pay as much as $510 million for rights to market Acorda Therapeutics Inc.’s experimental MS pill outside the United States.
Acorda will receive an upfront payment of $110 million and as much as $400 million for meeting development and sales goals, the companies said yesterday.
The drug, Fampridine SR, designed to improve walking ability in patients with multiple sclerosis, will be sold by Acorda in the United States. It may win clearance for US sale this year.
Biogen Idec, based in Cambridge, Mass., is racing Merck KGaA and Novartis AG to market the first pill for multiple sclerosis, a debilitating nervous-system disease currently managed by injected drugs that generate $6 billion a year worldwide. Acorda said in February it would need to sell rights to Fampridine to pay for operating beyond next year.
Biogen Idec’s top-selling MS medication, Avonex, generated $2.2 billion last year. Biogen Idec’s fastest-growing product is the MS drug Tysabri, which generated 2008 sales of $589 million for the company. The company markets Tysabri with Dublin-based Elan Corp. Biogen Idec’s oral MS drug, BG-12, is in final human tests.
About 2.5 million people worldwide have MS, including 400,000 in the United States.
Existing treatments are designed to suppress the immune system’s assault on myelin, preventing further erosion that worsens symptoms. Fampridine is the first in a new family of medicines designed to restore nerve signals after myelin is lost.
