Pharmaceutical AM-Pharma has signed a million-dollar deal with a Japanese industry colleague for the sales rights of a drug against acute kidney failure.
The value of the contract could total up to 245 million euros if the drug is approved in Japan and allowed to be sold there. The Utrecht-based company will immediately receive 20 million euros.
After approval in Japan, the Japanese pharmaceutical company Kyowa Kirin will receive the exclusive rights to sell the drug ilofotase alfa, formerly recAP. The drug is still being tested on up to 1,600 patients in Europe, the United States and Japan. Once that investigation has been completed, approval and marketing authorization will be applied.
According to AM-Pharma, about 3 million patients in the US, Europe and Japan suffer from sepsis-related kidney failure every year. About 700,000 of these dies. Blood poisoning, also called sepsis, is a violent inflammatory reaction of the body to an infection. It can be so severe that organs such as the kidneys fail. AM-Pharma is also investigating the effectiveness of the same drug in patients with organ failure after infection with the coronavirus.
In patients in intensive care, the kidneys often do not work properly. As a result, failure of the organ occurs in 40 to 60 percent of admissions. “In the US alone, treating this acute condition costs about $10 billion a year,” AM-Pharma writes in a note to the deal.