deals, Life Sciences, Hepatitis C

Vertex Selling Telaprevir Payment Rights

Ryan McBride 7/10/09

Cambridge, MA-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:VRTX) revealed today its plans to raise cash through the sale of rights to $250 million in milestone payments it could receive for successfully developing and launching its experimental hepatitis C treatment, telaprevir, in Europe, according to a press release. No buyer of the rights was announced. Vertex gained rights to the payments through its 2006 collaboration with Janssen Pharmaceutica, a unit of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), which agreed to pay Vertex $100 million if telaprevir garners European approval and $150 million upon the launch of the drug in Europe in exchange for European marketing rights. Here is a story from the In Vivo Blog with some insights about why selling rights to these milestone payments may make sense for Vertex.

Ryan McBride is Xconomy's correspondent. You can reach him at rmcbride@xconomy.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Ryan_McBride.