Teva terminates pain drug development with Xenon

Xenon Pharmaceuticals will regain the full rights to TV-45070 after the topical analgesic failed to meet endpoints in a Phase II trial last year.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries entered into a collaborate agreement with Canada’s Xenon in 2012 to develop the small molecule Nav1.7 and Nav1.8 voltage-gated sodium channel blocker pain candidate TV-45070.

But during its end-of-year results presentation yesterday, Xenon announced the two firms have entered an agreement to terminate the collaborative development and license agreement.

“We mutually agreed to terminate the collaboration after Teva had informed us that it no longer intends to develop TV-45070,” Xenon’s CFO Ian Mortimer said on a conference call. “This was expected after the TV-45070 clinical read-out last year.”

In June 2017, the two firms announced top-line results in a Phase II study of topical TV-45070 in patients with post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN) met neither primary or secondary endpoints.

The trial was a proof of concept study seeking to understand the potential for a topical route of Nav1.7blockade in PHN.

“Teva will also return or assign to us certain intellectual property and know-how including certain patent rights and regulatory filings as part of the termination,” said Mortimer. “We believe this is a very good business solution for us.”

Under terms of the termination, Teva has agreed to transfer and assign one million common shares of Xenon that they currently hold, which Xenon says it will then cancel, thus having one million fewer shares outstanding post-transaction.