As part of the deal, OnCore will pay NeuroVive an initial upfront payment, development and sales milestones as well as royalties based on future sales.
The total value of the license agreement is about $150m, excluding royalty payments.
NeuroVive’s cyclophilin inhibitors called sangamides are based on a new polyketide chemistry platform.
NVP018, an orally available, sangamide-based, second generation cyclophilin inhibitor, is the lead drug candidate in NeuroVive’s cyclophilin program and has undergone extensive pre-clinical development.
OnCore, which now has exclusive worldwide rights to NVP018, intends to evaluate the product candidate in clinical trials in 2015.
Compared to other cyclophilin inhibitors, NVP018 has a well-differentiated preclinical profile.
OnCore chief scientific officer Michael Sofia said NVP018 is a promising anti-viral drug candidate and has tremendous clinical potential for oral use as a novel treatment for patients with chronic hepatitis B infection.
"We believe that a curative therapy for HBV will likely contain an immunomodulatory agent, such as NPV018, combined with multiple antiviral agents with differing mechanisms of action," Sofia said.