As part of the deal, Ipsen has paid €6m for the option to acquire Canbex at the completion of a Phase IIa trial under which the latter’s present shareholders will be eligible to receive up to an additional €90m, including an acquisition payment, plus royalties on VSN16R.
Canbex is a spin-off of University College London (UCL) that raised a Series A financing of GBP2.3m in 2013 from MS Ventures (Merck Serono’s corporate venture arm), the Wellcome Trust and UCL Business.
Ipsen chairman and chief executive officer Marc de Garidel said: "Ipsen is delighted to enter into a partnership with the UK biotech company Canbex. Their lead compound has demonstrated excellent safety, efficacy and tolerability to date and fits well within our neurology franchise.
"Indeed, it could be a valuable companion product to Dysport in the treatment of spasticity. The agreement with Canbex also reflects our ambition to maintain our business development efforts to complement organic growth."
VSN16R is intended to treat spasticity in MS and other disorders, while in preclinical and Phase I clinical trial, this compound was showed to have the potential to provide substantially better patient care compared to existing systemic anti-spastic treatments.
In the Phase I clinical safety trial around 72 healthy volunteers were enrolled in a placebo-controlled, single ascending- and multiple-ascending dose design.