Covington Advises AstraZeneca on Strategic Transaction with Almirall in Respiratory Disease

Covington Advises AstraZeneca on Strategic Transaction with Almirall in Respiratory Disease

July 30, 2014

LONDON, 30 July, 2014 — Covington & Burling advised AstraZeneca on its agreement to transfer to the company the rights to Almirall’s respiratory franchise for an initial consideration of $875 million on completion, and up to $1.22 billion in development, launch, and sales-related milestones. AstraZeneca has also agreed to make various sales-related payments.

Upon completion of the transaction, AstraZeneca will own the rights for the development and commercialisation of Almirall’s existing proprietary respiratory business, including rights to revenues from Almirall’s existing partnerships, as well as its pipeline of investigational novel therapies. The franchise includes Eklira® (aclidinium); LAS40464, the combination of aclidinium with formoterol which has been filed for registration in the EU and is being developed in the US; LAS100977 (abediterol), a once-daily long-acting beta2-agonist (LABA) in Phase II; an M3 antagonist beta2-agonist (MABA) platform in pre-clinical development (LAS191351, LAS194871) and Phase I (LAS190792); and multiple pre-clinical programmes. Under the agreement, Almirall Sofotec, an Almirall subsidiary focused on the development of innovative proprietary devices, will also transfer to AstraZeneca.

Working together with AstraZeneca’s in-house legal team, the Covington team was led by Lucinda Osborne and Gregor Frizzell. The team was advised by lawyers from the firm’s London and Brussels offices, including James Ryan (Life Sciences Transactional), Miranda Cole (Competition) and Christopher Walter (Employment).