It’s been a few weeks since we’ve seen a big licensing deal. Last night, Cardiome announced they licensed vernakalant (in development for atrial fibrillation) to Merck in a $700M deal. Here’s the details:

• Worldwide rights for oral version of vernakalant (designed for maintenance therapy);

• Ex-US rights for intravenous version (Astellas has North American rights and had a complete response last year, iv version is for acute conversion in a hospital setting);

• Cardiome gets $60M upfront;

• $200M in development and approval milestones;

• $100M for approvals in different indications;

• Sales milestones of $340M plus royalties.

Here was Cardiome CEO Bob Rieder’s take on the sweeeeeet deal:

“Given Merck’s long-established leadership in the cardiovascular space, we believe there is no company better suited to advance vernakalant. This collaboration places Cardiome in a strong financial position as we conclude our strategic review, and moves the Company closer to providing doctors with an important tool to address this critical unmet medical need.”

Vernakalant (oral) is being evaluated as an oral maintenance therapy for the long-term prevention of atrial fibrillation recurrence. A Phase 2b double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, dose-ranging clinical trial in patients at risk of recurrent atrial fibrillation showed that at the 500 mg dose, vernakalant (oral) significantly reduced the rate of atrial fibrillation relapse as compared to placebo.

As opposed to some of the other sarcastic takes on deals, we think this deal was not overvalued. Good results, good medical need, nice upfront. Congrats.

Btw, I wonder if Astellas is thinking “wtf?” right now? First complete response for iv, then CVTX rug-pull by GILD, now oral deal with Merck? Someone’s ass is out the door!

Image from cardiome

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