Aribio said on the 13th that it received a $50 million option advance payment (about 75.2 billion won) under the global exclusive license agreement for the Alzheimer's disease treatment candidate "AR1001" from Chinese pharmaceutical company Fuxing Pharmaceutical.
After first receiving $10 million on May, with this additional payment completed, Aribio has secured a total of $60 million (about 90 billion won) in option advance payments.
This advance payment follows the AR1001 global development and commercialization option and license agreement the two companies signed on May. The total contract size is $4.7 billion (about 7 trillion won), and if Fuxing Pharmaceutical exercises its option on global rights, Aribio will receive additional upfront payments, development, approval and sales milestones, and sales royalties.
Based on the secured funds, Aribio plans to accelerate follow-up procedures for the AR1001 global phase 3 clinical trial and preparations for commercialization. It plans to invest in data analysis, establishing a global approval strategy, and building chemistry, manufacturing and controls (CMC).
AR1001 is an oral, once-daily Alzheimer's disease treatment candidate. In an Alzheimer's treatment market currently dominated by antibody-based injectables, it is being developed as an oral therapy that improves dosing convenience.
The company recently completed dosing of the last patient in the global phase 3 clinical trial (POLARIS-AD). The trial enrolled 1,535 patients with early Alzheimer's disease at about 230 sites across 13 countries, including Korea, the United States, Canada, Europe and China. It is now proceeding with final result confirmation steps such as data cleaning, databases lock (DB Lock) and statistical analysis, and plans to disclose the key indicator (topline) results in the fall this year.
Separately from the option contract, the two companies are also pursuing a strategic equity investment by Fuxing Pharmaceutical. Fuxing Pharmaceutical has decided to make an equity investment totaling $27.5 million (about 42.5 billion won) in Aribio.
Chief Executive Jeong Jae-jun of Aribio said, "The full disbursement of the advance payment as scheduled shows Fuxing Pharmaceutical's confidence in AR1001's clinical success potential and commercial value," adding, "With the global phase 3 topline announcement approaching, the two companies will work together to prepare for commercialization without a hitch."
Meanwhile, Aribio said it has signed cumulative contracts worth about 10 trillion won to date through global exclusive sales rights agreements for AR1001.