Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Acton Pharma gets rights from Sanofi for nasal spray drug

By Rodney H. Brown

Startup Acton Pharmaceuticals Inc. has entered into a deal with French drug-making giant Sanofi for the exclusive U.S. rights to develop and market the prescription nasal steroid spray NASACORT HFA for allergy symptoms.

According to a release from Marlborough-based Acton Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi chose it because it has expertise in overcoming manufacturing issues that crop up in aerosol products. Daniel Kreisler, co-founder and president of Acton Pharmaceuticals, said in the release, “The NASACORT HFA’s New Drug Application was a FDA-approved aerosol product but was not commercially launched due to technical reasons related to manufacturing scale up.” He stated that he was confident that Acton Pharmaceuticals could solve those problems for Sanofi.

No financial details of the agreement were disclosed in the release.

In May, Acton Pharmaceuticals named Kenneth Newman as executive vice president, chief medical officer, and Thomas Phair as senior vice president, chief financial officer. Last September, the company raised $14.2 million in a Series A-1 funding round. While the investors in the round weren’t identified in an SEC filing, the only backer Acton notes on its website is Sequoia Capital, and the filing did list Sequoia Capital partner Scott Carter, who sits on the Acton Pharmaceuticals board of directors, as a related person in the financing.

Acton Pharmaceuticals was founded in 2008 by Kreisler and John Simon. Kreisler, who worked for Forest Laboratories for 16 years, most recently co-founded and served as vice president of business development at JDS Pharmaceuticals. Simon, also a long-time Forest Laboratories veteran, has served most recently as vice president of Sepracor Inc.