TAb Signs $23 Million US Licensing Deal

Therapeutic Antibodies of the UK has licensed three of its emergency-usepolyclonal antibody products to Altana Inc, the US subsidiary of German company Byk Gulden. Altana will pay TAb $23 million for the distribution rights to the antivenom product CroTab, DigiTab for the treatment of digoxin poisoning and TriTab for treating overdoses with tricyclic antidepressants. TAb's share price rose by 11 pence on the day of the announcement (October 13) to close at 242.5 pence.

Martin Brown, chief executive of TAb, said that the deal was extremely important for TAb, and is far bigger than its other collaborations, for example with Faulding of Australia and Swedish Orphan. The deal is good for both partners, he added, noting that TAb will gain the benefit of Altana's specialist hospital sales force in the USA, while Altana gains new products to flesh out its range, currently making sales in the region of $100 million a year, which is starting to mature.

TAb will receive $4.5 million upon the achievement of milestones expected before the end of the year and in 1998, while up to another $4.5 million will be payable after US approval for the product line. TAb will also receive bonus payments on sales levels of the products. These are on a sliding scale based on their performance in the market, but if they perform as expected, the bonus will be around $13 million in the first three years of each product's sales.