Bristol-Myers Squibb will divest its pipeline of HIV drug candidates, consisting of a number of programs at different stages of discovery, preclinical and clinical development, to ViiV Healthcare.
ViiV will make upfront payments of $350 million to BMS with development and regulatory milestone payments of up to $518 million for the clinical assets and up to $587 million for the discovery and pre-clinical programs possible. Once products are approved and commercialized, ViiV Healthcare will pay tiered royalties.
Additionally, ViiV Healthcare will pay sales-based milestone payments of up to $750 million for each of the clinical assets and up to $700 million for each of the discovery and preclinical programs.
The Bristol-Myers Squibb clinical stage HIV pipeline includes an attachment inhibitor (BMS-663068), currently being investigated in Phase III as a therapeutic option for heavily treatment-experienced patients, and a maturation inhibitor (BMS-955176), currently being investigated in Phase IIb development for treatment-naïve and treatment-experienced patients. The agreements with ViiV Healthcare do not include BMS’ marketed HIV medicines, including Reyataz, Evotaz, Sustiva, and Atripla.
ViiV Healthcare will manage and resource the acquired development programs and BMS will continue to provide, at ViiV Healthcare’s expense, certain research and development support during a transitional period. Approximately 20 BMS employees are being offered the opportunity to transfer to ViiV Healthcare.
ViiV Healthcare, which is majority-owned by GSK, with Pfizer and Shionogi as equity partners, is currently advising Qura Therapeutics (a jointly owned new company started with the University of North Carolina) and a research center launched by the partners in May.
