The move represents an earlier collaborative deal between the companies, which was signed in 2010, and will provide financial resources to Biotie to carry out phase 3 development trials of the product.
UCB executive vice president and chief medical officer Dr Iris Loew-Friedrich said the firm is committed to improve the lives of people with Parkinson’s disease and currently provides Neupro a transdermal dopamine agonist for the symptomatic treatment of all stages of idiopathic Parkinson’s disease.
"Biotie is a valuable partner and the decision to in-license follows the positive top-line results of the phase 2b study. We were impressed by the performance of Biotie and decided that they are the ideal party to continue to spearhead the development of tozadenant," Friedrich added.
Biotie said a phase 2b study evaluating the safety and efficacy of tozadenant as an adjunctive therapy in levodopa-treated Parkinson’s patients will be presented at upcoming medical conferences and in scientific publications, while patient enrolment for the phase 3 trial is currently planned to commence by the first half of 2015.