Forest Laboratories Holdings and Almirall to develop, market and distribute LAS100977 in the US

Dec 17 2009

Forest Laboratories Holdings, Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Forest Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE: FRX) and Almirall, S.A. (ALM.MC) today announced that they have entered an agreement to develop, market and distribute LAS100977 in the United States. LAS100977 is an inhaled, once-daily administered long-acting beta2 agonist (LABA) that until now has been developed by Almirall to treat bronchoconstriction in asthmatic patients. Forest and Almirall will develop LAS100977 in combination with an undisclosed corticosteroid using Almirall’s proprietary GENUAIR® inhaler for the treatment of both asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Under the terms of the agreement, Forest will make an upfront payment to Almirall of $75 million and will pay future, undisclosed milestone payments and sales based royalty payments. Forest will assume responsibility for the United States regulatory approval and commercialization.

"We are very pleased with this new agreement. Extending our collaboration with Forest is an excellent opportunity to maximize the value of LAS100977 for patients and investors," said Jorge Gallardo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Almirall. "Forest has first class development and commercial capabilities and both parties can leverage from the current EKLIRA® (aclidinium bromide) collaboration to move forward these exciting respiratory compounds. This agreement is also a milestone in our aim to offer society innovative medicines to fulfill unmet medical needs,” he added.

Howard Solomon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Forest, said, "We are pleased to have entered into this second major collaboration with Almirall, one of the premier innovators in the respiratory field. This agreement represents an exciting extension of the strong collaboration established with aclidinium bromide for COPD three years ago between Forest and Almirall and which will be completing Phase III studies in 2010. LAS100977 has shown very encouraging results in the completed Phase II studies, and we believe it will be a very competitive entrant in this large drug class. With the addition of LAS100977, Forest rounds out a broad COPD pipeline that was recently augmented with DAXAS® (roflumilast) and will also gain access to the larger asthma market with a once-daily inhaled corticosteroid/LABA combination.”