TANABE AND SANDOZ IN DRUG ALLIANCE

Tanabe Seiyaku and Sandoz' Japanese subsidiary, Sandoz Yakuhin, have entered into a cross-licensing agreement for the parallel marketing of two of the companies' cardiovascular drugs. The deal also involves another as-yet unnamed Tanabe compound.

The two drugs in question are Sandoz' lipid-lowering drug fluvastatin and Tanabe's docarpamine, an agent which is used to improve cardiac and renal circulation. Tanabe has filed a New Drug Application for docarpamine in Japan. Under the terms of the agreement, Tanabe gains parallel local marketing rights to fluvastatin, which is currently in Phase III trials in Japan, and gives Sandoz the same rights to docarpamine.

Fluvastatin is an HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor (like Merck & Co's lovastatin and simvastatin and Bristol-Myers Squibb's pravastatin). Sandoz says that its features include a greater potency than conventional drugs of the same type, once-daily dosing and an ability to lower both triglycerides while increasing the protective high-density lipoprotein particles. Docarpamine is a dopamine derivative prodrug, given orally, which increases cardiac blood flow and contractility and is intended to allow the earlier discharge of patients undergoing long-term continuous drip infusion therapy.