Biotie to regain global rights to tozadenant from UCB

26 March 2014

Finland-based Biotie Therapies (Nasdaq OMX: BTH1V) says that partner Belgium-based drugmaker (Euronext Brussels: UCB), following a portfolio review, will return global rights to the investigational compound tozadenant to Biotie.

Tozadenant (SYN115), originally licensed to UCB in 2010 and UCB paid Biotie $20 million to exercise its license in February 2013, is a selective inhibitor of the adenosine 2a (A2a) receptor, which has delivered clinically relevant and statistically highly significant effects in Parkinson's disease, across multiple pre-specified evaluation parameters, in a 420 patient Phase IIb study completed in late 2012 (The Pharma Letter December 11, 2012). Tozadenant is expected to start recruitment for the Phase III program in first-half 2015.

Biotie regaining the rights follows after UCB's assessment of its early and late stage clinical development pipeline as well as its preclinical opportunities and does not reflect any concerns regarding safety or efficacy of tozadenant.

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