AstraZeneca and Aspen Group have inked a new partnership

Operating in over 100 countries, global pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has signed an agreement with Aspen Group international (AGI) surrounding its residual rights to a number of its anaesthetic medicines. These medicines include Dipravan, EMLA, Xylocaine/Xylocard/Xylopract, Marcaine, Naropin, Carbpcaine and Citane.

The agreement will see the medicines enter markets outside of the US, with AGI gaining the remaining rights to AstraZeneca’s intellectual property and manufacturing expertise surrounding the anaesthetics. In addition, the company will pay over $200 million from 2017 to 2019 in performance related milestones based on sales surrounding the use of these products.

AstraZeneca will continue to manufacture and supply the medicines to AGI through a five-year transition.

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Mark Mallon, Executive Vice President, Global Product and Portfolio Strategy, AstraZeneca said: “AGI has shown that it is in a strong position to maximise the value and reach of the anaesthetic medicines through its extensive commercial network.

Disposing the remaining rights to the medicines allows both companies to benefit from greater efficiencies as AstraZeneca continues to focus our resources on our three main therapy areas.”

Under the terms of a prior agreement, AGI made an upfront payment to AstraZeneca of $520 million and agreed to make future Product Sales-related payments of up to $250 million (see first payment below), as well as paying double-digit percentage royalties on Product Sales.

AstraZeneca agreed to continue to manufacture and supply the medicines to AGI on a cost-plus basis for an initial period of 10 years.

The company has been selling off a large number of its intellectual rights surrounding the manufacture of a number of drugs, such as beta-blocker Toprol-XL, in order to further restructure its operations and resources, and implement a strategy with specific areas of focus.

With this in mind, the company is also selling its rights outside Japan to migraine drug, Zomig, to Germany’s Gruenthal, the company has previously reported.