Eli Lilly and Chugai establishing 50:50 joint venture in Japan

Eli Lilly and Chugai Pharmaceutical have announced plans to set up a50:50 joint venture in Japan called the Chugai Lilly Clinical Research Company. Based in Tokyo, the JV will manage the development of selected Lilly compounds targeted for the Japanese market and in exchange, Chugai will receive certain copromotion and comarketing rights to those products. The new entity will be capitalized at 200 million yen ($1.7 million).

Lilly says that by entering this agreement, it will initially be able to accelerate the development of the antidepressant Prozac (fluoxetine), a treatment to reverse multi-drug resistance in cancer and tomoxetine, which is currently being evaluated to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Also being considered for development by the JV is IC351, a phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor which is being evaluated as an oral treatment for sexual dysfunction.

Lilly's chairman Sidney Taurel said that the agreement "will extend and deepen the strong and productive relationship" that has evolved between the two companies since 1995. He noted that while Lilly Japan is "an outstanding organization that has grown rapidly in recent years," the company's pipeline contains more new products than "we can develop and optimally market on our own in a timely fashion."