Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Synta pulls in $10M GSK milestone payment

By Mass High Tech staff

Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp., a Lexington biopharmaceutical firm, has received an operational milestone payment of $10 million from GlaxoSmithKline, associated with Synta’s elesclomol, a drug for programming cell death in cancer cells.

The $10 million payment contributes to a total of $130 million that GSK has paid Synta (Nasdaq: SNTA). Synta is eligible to receive $300 million in sales milestones, U.S. operating profit shares of between 40 percent and 50 percent and sales royalties outside the U.S.

The original collaboration agreement, established in October 2007, called for GSK to pay up to $585 million to Synta in development and regulatory milestone payments, with $50 million paid to date, $100 million related to melanoma and the remainder for other cancer indications.

Elesclomol is currently in Phase 3 clinical trials, being tested with paclitaxel to treat metastatic melanoma.

In January 2008, Synta and GSK were granted “orphan” drug status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for elesclomol. The orphan status provides the firms with seven years of market exclusivity if the drug is approved. It also gives the companies tax credits and a reduction in FDA user fees, according to the firms. Orphan status is granted for treatments that treat diseases found in 200,000 or fewer Americans.

Synta is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing chemical-based or small molecule drugs for cancer and other diseases.