Santhera deal with Idorsia includes equity stake option

Santhera Pharmaceuticals (SIX: SANN) has entered into an agreement with fellow Switzerland-based Idorsia (SIX: IDIA) under which Santhera will acquire the option to exclusively in-license, by way of sub-license, the first-in-class dissociative steroid vamorolone in all indications and all countries worldwide except Japan and South Korea.

Initial clinical data suggest that vamorolone has the anti-inflammatory efficacy of steroids with reduced steroid-associated safety concerns, which would represent a significant improvement over current standard of care glucocorticoid therapy in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), vamorolone's lead indication.

Idorsia is the research-based spin-out from Actelion following the latter’s $30 billion acquisition by Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) last year.