Washington Editor

NPS Pharmaceuticals Inc. and AstraZeneca plc mutually agreed to end their six-year partnership to discover and develop drugs targeting metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs).

AstraZeneca is paying Bedminster, N.J.-based NPS $30 million to acquire all assets related to the firm's research involving mGluRs.

News of the agreement sent shares of NPS (NASDAQ:NPSP) up 67 cents on Tuesday, or 14 percent, to close at $5.43.

London-based AstraZeneca has at least two mGluR candidates, AZD9272 and AZD6538, in clinical studies targeting neuropathic pain. The firm estimates that it will file new drug applications (NDAs) with the FDA for both compounds in 2009.

MGluRs are implicated in a variety of central nervous system conditions such as epilepsy, Parkinson's disease and pain.

Under terms of the agreement, NPS no longer will provide research support for or maintain interests in any drugs discovered, developed and commercialized under the mGluR program, the company said.

"We still think it is a viable program," said NPS spokeswoman Brandi Simpson. "But we felt that our money would be better spent elsewhere."

NPS, she told BioWorld Today, intends to use the $30 million to support further development of its late-stage products, specifically Preos, a recombinant human parathyroid hormone, and Gattex, an analogue of glucagon-like peptide-2, a naturally occurring hormone that regulates the growth, proliferation and maintenance of cells lining the gastrointestinal tract.

"NPS has limited funds, and we are reinventing ourselves and our balance sheet and refocusing ourselves on late-stage development," Simpson said.

Monetizing its interests in the mGluR program, which Simpson called a "noncore" asset, will enable NPS to have a "sharper focus" on Preos and Gattex, she said.

Last month, NPS announced that it had granted the rights to develop and commercialize Gattex (teduglutide) outside North America to Zurich, Switzerland-based Nycomed. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 27, 2007.)

NPS has retained the rights to develop and commercialize the product in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, Simpson noted.

Under the Nycomed deal, NPS has the potential to earn up to $185 million plus royalties. Nycomed agreed to pay NPS $35 million up front, of which $25 million is to be paid within two weeks after the release of results from a Phase III study of Gattex in patients with short bowel syndrome (SBS). Those results are expected in the current quarter.

NPS has indicated that it plans to submit an NDA to the FDA for Gattex for the SBS indication in mid-2008. The firm also is pursuing development of Gattex as a possible treatment for chemotherapy-induced gastrointestinal mucositis in patients with cancer and necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants.

NPS submitted an NDA to the FDA in May 2005 for Preos to treat osteoporosis, and the agency issued an approvable letter in March 2006. However, regulators indicated that NPS needed to conduct another Phase III study because of concerns raised about hypercalcemia associated with the proposed daily dose of the drug.

Simpson said NPS will not pursue the osteoporosis indication any further until it gains a U.S. partner for the product.

In the meantime, she said, the firm is studying Preos as a therapy for hyperthyroidism, which Simpson said is an indication that is "much less expensive to pursue."

The product was granted marketing approval in Europe in May 2006 and is sold there under the brand name Preotact.