The unraveling of Zosano Pharma has led to a drug delivery deal. With the company filing for bankruptcy in the wake of its rejection by the FDA, Emergex Vaccines has stepped in to provide a new home for its intradermal drug delivery system.
California-based Zosano threw in the towel over the summer, submitting the paperwork for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after back-to-back rejections by the FDA left it without the cash to mount a third push for approval of its transdermal migraine candidate. The situation left Zosano needing to sell “substantially all of its assets” to cover the claims of its more than 200 creditors.
Emergex, a British developer of fully synthetic CD8+ T cell adaptive vaccines, has struck a deal to buy drug delivery assets. The transaction covers a microneedle array patch intradermal drug delivery system, including a reusable applicator, solid coated microneedle array patch technology, product packaging, methods for formulation and microneedle coating.
“The vaccines being developed by Emergex have been designed for intradermal administration, and we have been exploring delivery using microneedle patches for some time. We feel that the MAP technology developed by Zosano is an exceptional strategic fit that complements our CD8+ T cell Adaptive Vaccine platform,” Brian Pfister, vice president at Emergex USA, said in a statement.
Zosano has also offloaded specialized equipment designed and built for the clinical and commercial manufacture of the technology, plus intellectual property and license agreements associated with the assets.
Emergex, which previously ran proof-of-concept studies that combined its vaccines with the patch, won an auction for the assets over the summer. LTS Lohmann was the backup bidder. With the bankruptcy court approving the sale of substantially all of Zosano’s assets to Emergex, the acquisition has now gone through.
The court approved the sale of the assets for $1.25 million. A part, $250,000, of the purchase price is a reimbursement to the CDMO Patheon for “reasonable, and documented costs to dismantle and remove and relocate certain manufacturing equipment.”
