Avera Pharmaceuticals Inc. bolstered its pipeline with the addition of a late-stage compound for depression and anxiety.

The San Diego-based company licensed worldwide rights to the unnamed compound from Novartis AG, which took an equity stake in privately held Avera as part of the exchange. Novartis also received an undisclosed up-front payment and is eligible for further milestone-based payments and royalties, should the product reach the market.

More specific financial terms were not disclosed, and company officials did not return calls seeking comment.

Avera, which also acquired all intellectual property related to the compound, will be responsible for the remainder of its clinical development. To date, Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis has advanced the compound into Phase II studies.

The in-licensing model is nothing new for Avera, which describes itself as a development-stage pharmaceutical firm focused on neuroscience therapeutics.

Upon raising $16 million in its Series A round of financing about a year and a half ago, Avera acquired a series of neuromuscular blocking agents from GlaxoSmithKline plc. As part of that arrangement, the London-based pharmaceutical firm also took an undisclosed equity position in the company, which was founded in the spring of 2002. But Avera's primary financial backers remain a group of venture capital investors. (See BioWorld Today, May 24, 2002.)

Neuromuscular blocking agents are used as muscle relaxants to aid surgical or anesthesia procedures. The lead compound from the series, which also was discovered by researchers at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York, is GW280430A. The rapid-onset, short-acting, nondepolarizing, neuromuscular blocking agent has been tested in Phase I trials.

More recently, last December Avera licensed a compound for mental illnesses such as depression, schizophrenia and cognitive disorders from Eli Lilly and Co. The company acquired the compound's worldwide rights and supporting intellectual property in exchange for undisclosed up-front payment, milestone and royalty payments due to Indianapolis-based Lilly.