Novartis will end collaboration with Idera

Globe Staff

Idera Pharmaceuticals Inc. said today that Novartis AG, the Swiss drug company with large research operations in Cambridge, will terminate its research collaboration agreement with Idera in February.

In 2005, Cambridge-based Idera entered into a research collaboration and option agreement and a separate license, development, and commercialization agreement with Novartis to discover, develop, and commercialize potential treatments for asthma and allergies, Idera said in a press release.

Under the terms of the research collaboration agreement, Novartis paid Idera a $4 million upfront license fee and in 2007, a $1 million payment associated with the extension of the research collaboration, the release said.

When the collaboration ends, Idera said it will regain full rights to IMO-2134, a drug candidate covered in the agreement.

In a separate press release, Idera said that Merck & Co. Inc., through an affiliate, has extended its research collaboration with Idera for a fourth year.

When that deal was announced in late 2006, a Globe brief noted that Idera had signed a drug-development deal with Merck in which the New Jersey drug giant would pay $20 million cash and buy $10 million in stock for the rights to use Idera's immune-boosting technology in potential Merck vaccines. If the vaccines succeed, the deal could be worth up to $425 million in additional milestone payments to Idera, that story said.