Clinical Data also inked two promissory notes totaling $25.2 million and agreed to pay up to $30 million in milestone fees.

Clinical Data is buying Adenosine Therapeutics for $11 million in cash. The firm also entered into a $22 million, five-year promissory note and a separate $3.2 million, 32-month promissory note. Clinical Data could also pay up to $30 million in cash on achievement of certain regulatory and commercial milestones.


“This transaction broadens our portfolio of drug candidates in selected specialty markets,” notes Drew Fromkin, president and CEO of Clinical Data. “We believe that combining our pharmacogenomic expertise with Adenosine Therapeutics’ broad estate of highly selective adenosine receptor agonists and antagonists could produce targeted therapeutics and companion biomarker tests across a number of therapeutic areas, with a development path made more efficient with the incorporation of biomarkers.”


Clinical Data’s PGxHealth division’s pipeline will gain drug candidates in cardiology, diabetes, inflammatory diseases, and sickle cell anemia. Furthest along is Stedivaze™, which is expected to enter Phase III testing in 2009 as a pharmacologic stress agent for myocardial perfusion imaging.


Adenosine Therapeutics has licensing agreements with Novartis and a confidential partner. Novartis holds an option to collaborate on the development of ATL844, which is in preclinical diabetes and asthma studies. The other firm holds an option on another preclinical compound for an ophthalmic indication.


“Adenosine’s scientific team has made promising discoveries relating to genetic variants in adenosine receptors and disease states such as diabetes,” according to Carol Reed, M.D., CMO for Clinical Data. “We believe that pursuing biomarker strategies from the early stages of clinical trials will enable us to realize a more efficient development pathway resulting in drugs targeted to the segment of the patient population most likely to respond.”

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