Friday, August 31, 2018
POXEL SA, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of innovative treatments for metabolic disorders, including type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and DeuteRx LLC, a privately-held clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to improving racemic drugs, today announced that Poxel has acquired DRX-065, a novel clinical stage drug candidate that the company plans to develop for the treatment of NASH. Poxel has also acquired a portfolio of additional deuterated drug candidates from DeuteRx for metabolic, specialty and rare diseases.
Poxel will pay DeuteRx an upfront payment composed of EUR 6.8 million (USD 8 million) in cash plus 1.29 million in new ordinary shares of Poxel common stock, representing 4.99 percent of Poxel’s issued capital. DeuteRx is also eligible to receive development, regulatory and sales-based milestone payments, and royalties on net sales.
“Today’s announcement is strategically important to Poxel and represents the third major corporate transaction that we have accomplished in the past year,” said Thomas Kuhn, CEO of Poxel. “With the partnerships for Imeglimin with Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma and with Roivant Sciences, and the successful completion of the Phase 1 program for PXL770, a direct AMPK activator that we are advancing for the treatment of NASH, together with this important agreement with DeuteRx, we have strengthened the company both financially and strategically. We are very excited about our robust, well-diversified, mid- to late-stage metabolic pipeline targeting large market opportunities, as well as earlier-stage metabolic programs advancing in development.”
