The generous terms of the deal between BMS and ZymoGenetics, located in Seattle, Washington, indicate just how much hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatments with novel mechanisms could be worth. New York–based BMS will pay $85 million in up-front cash and $20 million in license fees to develop ZymoGenetics' PEG-IFN-λ, a type III IFN otherwise known as interleukin (IL)-29. The Seattle-based biotech also stands to gain another $1 billion in milestone payments if all goes according to plan. “The deal illustrates the ambition of BMS to be a player in the hepatitis C arena,” says Holger Rovini, lead analyst at Datamonitor. “With only three small-molecule antivirals in early-stage development, BMS has not been active so far [in this area], and this will bolster its position.”
Of the drugs currently in clinical practice, the market leader is Pegasys, a recombinant PEG-IFN-α2a commercialized by Roche of Basel, Switzerland that earns well over $1 billion a year in worldwide sales. Close behind Pegasys is Peg-Intron, a recombinant PEG-IFN-α2b developed by Kenilworth, New Jersey–based Schering Plough, which announced last month that it was merging with Merck of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey (and which is also currently testing a macrocyclic small-molecule inhibitor of HCV nonstructural protein 3/4a (NS3/4a) in phase 2). Both PEGylated type I IFNs have longer serum half-lives than their unmodified predecessor molecules.
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