SkyePharma and Astralis in psoriasis pact

SkyePharma of the UK and the USA's Astralis have announced a series ofagreements concerning development of the latter's novel injectable vaccine therapy, psoraxine, for the treatment of all forms of psoriasis. Discussions concerning the alliance have been ongoing for a few months, as Astralis recently said that it had been holding advanced talks with an unnamed European-based pharmaceutical firm that is a leader in the dermatological field (Marketletter October 22).

Firstly, SkyePharma will receive a $5 million license fee for granting access to DepoFoam and other relevant drug delivery technologies and will take responsibility for developing and manufacturing the vaccine through preclinical studies to Phase II trials.

Once these are completed, SkyePharma will have the option to acquire worldwide licensing and distribution rights to psoraxine, and it is anticipated that an Investigational New Drug application to start Phase Ib clinical studies will be filed with the US Food and Drug Administration in the first half of 2002.