Actelion obtains option to acquire privately-held Trophos

22.07.10 Allschwil / Marseille - The Swiss biotech company Actelion pays EUR10m to get a first hand on French Trophos SA. The two companies entered a binding agreement whereby Actelion has time till the end of 2011 to decide over an acqusition. By then the Phase III Study of Trophos' lead compound olesoxime in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), an orphan disease also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, should be finished. "Trophos has done an excellent job to enroll more than 500 ALS patients into a well-designed pivotal study", said Actelion's President of Business Development, Simon Buckingham. "Once study results are available, Actelion is ideally positioned to leverage these achievements with our proven global regulatory and marketing expertise in the area of orphan drugs."
The price of Trophos is reckoned to be about EUR 125 and 195 million in cash, contingent on different regulatory approvals and other clinical progress of Trophos' pipeline. Throphos' pipeline contains several new molecular entities in development for the motor neuron diseases ALS and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) as well as a novel compound for cardiac ischemia-reperfusion injury.
Actelion is growing fast. In the second quarter of 2010 the tunrover rose to EUR390m while profit rose to EUR89m. Bestseller is Tracleer, a drug against high blood pressure in the lung.