This is the third time that the Israeli drug developer has sold the commercialization rights to its cancer drug.
Medical industry holding company Clal Biotechnology Industries Ltd. (TASE: CBI) today announced that cancer drug developer CureTech, in which it has a controlling 53% stake, has been sold to Rehovot-based InSight Innovations in a deal that could reach $550 million. CureTech is developing an immunotherapy treatment for cancer that has successfully undergone advanced clinical trials and is currently designed for treating BIPG, a rare type of brain tumor.
InSight will pay $50 million immediately, partly to be invested in developing the product and partly to be divided among the company's shareholders. CBI, controlled by Len Blavatnik, will receive $3 million. With milestone payments and royalties, CureTech could earn up to $550 million from the deal.
If the product is eventually as planned approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for orphan indications in children and receives a pediatric voucher $150 million benefit from the FDA, then CureTech will receive 20% of the sum.
This is the third time that CureTech has sold commercialization rights to the drug. It was first sold to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA; TASE: TEVA), which invested Tens of millions of dollars in developing the treatment before returning CureTech to CBI in 2012, when Teva was under CEO Jeremy Levin.
CureTech was again sold in 2014 to Medivation, for an advance of $5 million and milestone payments and royalties that could have reached between $85 million and $245 million. Medivation was acquired by Pfizer in 2016 and last October CureTech paid $20 million to buy back the drug. Some of the money being paid now by InSight will apparently be used to pay Pfizer.
To date, CureTech has spent $100 million developing the drug including $5 million by CBI.
Drug development company InSight was recently acquired by Estonian company PharmaEstica Manufacturing and its Israeli partner Dr. Dobraslav Melamed for NIS 10.6 million.