Vertex to land $155M from future milestone payments

By Mass High Tech staff

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Milestone payments have Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. seeing green with an expected cash infusion of $155 million from two separate transactions.

The Cambridge-based small molecule drug maker will receive $120 million stemming from a notes offer for $155 million, to be paid by October 31, 2012. The remaining $35 million in cash will come to Vertex (Nasdaq: VRTX) from a sale of $95 million in rights to future milestone payments from Janssen Pharmaceutica N.V., a European subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. The milestone payments are associated with the European launch of telaprevir, a hepatitis C virus protease inhibitor.

Vertex officials said in a press release that the milestone payments will be earned by April 2012.

Janssen Pharmaceutica, an affiliate of Johnson & Johnson, holds development and commercial rights to telaprevir in Europe, South America, Australia, and the Middle East.

In July, Vertex said it would receive a $105 million upfront payment from Japanese pharmaceutical firm Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp. in an Asian market deal for telaprevir.

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