Merck KGaA returns rights to IMO-2055 in oncology to Idera Pharma

USA-based Idera Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: IDRA) revealed yesterday that it has regained global rights to IMO-2055, an agonist of Toll-like Receptor (TLR) 9, as part of an agreed-upon termination of its oncology collaboration with Germany’s Merck KGaA (MRK: DE), which started back in 2007.

Idera has agreed to reimburse around 1.8 million euros ($2.4 million) of Merck expenses during the course of the ongoing Phase II trial of the drug candidate, which the US company expects to pay over the course of around 12 months starting in March 2012. Idera has also agreed to pay to Merck milestone payments of 1 million euros each upon entering into any future partnership for IMO-2055, on initiating the next clinical trial of IMO-2055 that is a Phase II or Phase III clinical trial, and on the regulatory submission of IMO-2055 in any country.

Over the course of the collaboration, Merck conducted Phase I trials of IMO-2055 in several cancer indications and has an ongoing randomized Phase II trial of IMO-2055 in combination with the German firm’s already marketed oncology drug Erbitux (cetuximab) in patients with squamous cell cancer of the head and neck (SCCHN). As previously announced, Merck had informed Idera that it would not continue clinical development of IMO-2055 beyond completing the ongoing Phase II trial in SCCHN (The Pharma Letter July 8).