Lipoxen gets $1M license signing fee from Baxter

London, UK-based Lipoxen has signed an exclusive worldwide development and licence deal with a unit of US drugmaker Baxter International to develop improved, longer-acting forms of blood-clotting factors, triggering a $1.0 million payment to the former. The agreement includes further clinical and regulatory milestone payments potentially worth up to a total of $75.0 million, plus royalties on future product sales.

After the deal was announced, on December 15, shares in the UK biotechnology firm rose 4 pence to 29.5 pence. Analysts at Edison Investments said that the deal validates Lipoxen's PolyXen drug-delivery technology. Baxter evaluated this platform using its proprietary proteins as part of a 12-month research project. PolyXen links therapeutic proteins, or peptides, to the naturally-occurring polymer polysialic acid to prolong protein stability and biological half-life, and to improve solubility and immunological characteristics while maintaining biological activity and minimizing toxicity. Conjugating PolyXen to therapeutic blood-clotting factors aims to improve pharmacokinetic profile and extend active life in order to reduce the frequency of injections required to treat blood-clotting disorders such as hemophilia A, Lipoxen noted.