Ionis Sells Kynamro To Kastle After Regaining Rights From Genzyme

May 03 2016

• By Mandy Jackson

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Three and a half months after Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. surprised investors with the news that Sanofi's Genzyme business unit would no longer market Kynamro (mipomersen) for homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH), the Carlsbad, California-based biotechnology company revealed that it sold global rights to the cholesterol-lowering drug to Kastle Therapeutics LLC for up to $95m.

Kastle will give Ionis a 10% stake in the newly-founded, Chicago-based biotech company and it will pay Ionis (formerly Isis Pharmaceuticals) $15m up front plus another $10m in three years and up to $70m in sales milestone fees. Ionis will earn royalties in the low to mid-teens beginning in 2017. Sanofi Genzyme is entitled to a 3% royalty on Kynamro sales and 3% of the fees that Ionis earns from Kastle, which was formed in 2015 to buy, develop and commercialize medicines for unmet medical needs (Also see "JPM: Ionis Looks Past Kynamro To Profitability" - Scrip, 13 January, 2016.).

Kastle President Bryan Stuart noted in a joint statement from the company and Ionis that Kynamro is an ideal first...

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