Pharmacia Corp and Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical have amended their licenseagreement regarding the former's selective COX-2 specific inhibitor Celebrex (celecoxib) in Japan, where it is presently called YM177. Under the amended agreement, the firms will co-promote celecoxib in Japan with a single as-yet-undisclosed brand name, with Pharmacia KK bulk-importing the drug and Yamanouchi manufacturing the finished product. The original deal, signed in March 1996 by Yamanouchi and Searle, stated that the two companies would separately market celecoxib in Japan with two different brand names.
Toichi Takenaka, Yamanouchi's chief executive, said that the purpose of amending the deal "is to enable both parties to more effectively compete in the anti-inflammatory drug market." Celebrex, which was launched in the USA in 1999 and had global sales of $2.6 billion in 2000, recently completed Phase IIb studies in Japan.
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