Ferring Pharma enters $500 million royalty agreement

Privately-held Swiss company Ferring Pharmaceuticals today announced that Royalty Pharma (Nasdaq: RPRX) has acquired a synthetic royalty on US net sales of Ferring’s Adstiladrin (nadofaragene firadenovec-vncg) for up to $500 million, of which $300 million is upfront and a further $200 million in milestone payment.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last December approved Adstiladrin, an adenoviral vector-based gene therapy indicated for the treatment of adult patients with high-risk Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-unresponsive non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) with carcinoma in situ (CIS) with or without papillary tumors.

The milestone payment is contingent on certain manufacturing goals that are expected to be achieved in 2025 for the FDA-approved intravesical gene therapy that Ferring will make available next month through an early experience program.