Purdue and Exicure partner on psoriasis in deal worth up to $790 million

Privately-held US firms Purdue Pharma and Exicure have announced a new research collaboration and license agreement aimed at discovering and developing a treatment for psoriasis in a deal that could eventually be worth up to $790 million plus royalties on successful products.

The agreement will also target treatments for other diseases that could be treated with a gene regulation approach using Exicure’s Spherical Nucleic Acid (SNA) technology.

This deal sees Purdue gain full worldwide development and commercial rights to the topical plaque psoriasis drug AST-005, and also rights to three additional collaboration targets. Data from a recently-completed Phase I trial of AST-005 showed the drug to be safe and tolerable in 15 patients.