Wednesday, Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY), Kowa Co., Ltd., and Kowa's U.S. subsidiary, Kowa Pharmaceuticals America, Inc., announced that Lilly and Kowa Pharmaceuticals America have entered into a co-promotion agreement in the United States to commercialize Livalo. Lilly and Kowa have also entered into a licensing agreement in Latin America. Livalo is a statin drug to reduce the blood cholesterol level and it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August 2009 for the treatment of primary hyperlipidemia and mixed dyslipidemia. Under the terms of the agreements, Kowa Pharmaceuticals America will receive an undisclosed upfront payment.
The company stated that the co-promotion of the drug in the U.S. Market will be by providing sales force resources and sharing development and marketing costs. Kowa Pharmaceuticals America will record all U.S. sales of Livalo and will pay Lilly an escalating co-promotion fee based on the level of annual net sales. Lilly has also acquired an exclusive license from Kowa to commercialize Livalo in Latin American markets, including Mexico, Central America and South America, for which the deal terms were not disclosed.
John Lechleiter, Lilly's chairman and chief executive officer said,"We are pleased to partner with Kowa to help bring this new statin to market and provide patients a new option to help control their cholesterol. Our co-promotion arrangement in the U.S. and licensing arrangement in Latin America will allow Lilly to expand our product offerings in the cardiovascular therapeutic area and more efficiently utilize our existing cardiovascular sales force."
Nagoya, Japan-based Kowa expects that the new arrangement will pave the way for the efficient market entry and establish a presence with Livalo in the statin market in the U.S. and Latin America. Livalo is a fully synthetic statin originating from Japan and its sales in Japan for fiscal year 2008 reached 34 billion yen or approximately $380 million and its market share was around 12%.
LLY is currently traded at $36.37 up $0.26 or 0.72% on the NYSE.
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