Liquidia Technologies has announced amendments to its 2012 collaboration agreement with GlaxoSmithKline that gave GSK the rights to develop inhaled dry powder formulations based on Liquidia’s PRINT particle manufacturing technology. Under the terms of the amended agreement, Liquidia gets development and commercialization rights to three PRINT-based inhalation products.
In September 2015, GSK exercised an option for exclusive rights to all inhaled PRINT-based drugs, though Liquidia said at the time that it was retaining the rights to develop one inhaled therapy independently, the LIQ861 treprostinil DPI. Liquidia announced earlier this year that a Phase 3 trial of LIQ861 for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (“PAH”) met its primary endpoint.
Liquidia also now has the option to acquire rights to additional inhaled PRINT-based drugs. GSK will have to okay Liquidia’s acquisition of any of those drugs and will have the right of first negotiation if Liquidia wants to sign a license agreement with another company for any of those products. Liquidia would also pay GSK milestone payments and royalties for those inhaler programs.
Liquidia CEO Neal Fowler commented, “We are very excited by the opportunity to build on the benefits of PRINT technology in inhaled delivery, as evidenced by the success of our clinical studies with LIQ861, the first inhaled dry powder formulation of treprostinil to treat patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension. Although submitting the New Drug Application (NDA) for LIQ861 remains our top priority in 2019, we also see clear opportunities to further expand the Liquidia pipeline of respiratory products.”
Read the Liquidia Technologies press release.
