Vertex wants to sell some rights to hepatitis C drug
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. said it wants to sell the European rights to some of the future milestone payments tied to its promising hepatitis C drug candidate, telaprevir.
The milestone payments anticipated for telaprevir in Europe could be $250 million, and the expectation is that Vertex could earn that amount by mid 2012, the Cambridge company said in a press release.
The milestone payments are part of a 2006 agreement under which Vertex will collaborate with Janssen Pharmaceutica N.V., a Johnson & Johnson company, agreed to develop and launch telaprevir in the European Union, Vertex said.
Last month, Vertex's chief executive told an investors conference that he expected Vertex would become profitable shortly after it begins selling telaprevir, something likely to happen in early 2011.
In its press release today, Vertex said, "If the intended sale of the future milestone payments announced today is successful, Vertex would receive a one-time cash payment that reflects a substantial percentage of these future milestones payable by Janssen."
To read some coverage of Vertex that ran in the Globe, please click here.
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