With Eisai on the verge of scoring a potential approval for its Biogen-partnered Alzheimer’s disease drug lecanemab, the Japanese pharma is thinking big.
Monday, Eisai inked a deal to unload one of its smaller potatoes, epilepsy drug Fycompa (perampanel). Catalyst Pharmaceuticals will pick up its rights in the U.S. for $160 million upfront plus milestone and royalty payments tied to its future success.
The agreement also includes an option by Catalyst to acquire another unnamed epilepsy asset in Eisai’s pipeline.
Eisai has estimated its end-of-fiscal-year U.S. sales of Fycompa will come to roughly $136 million at the end of March, according to Catalyst. Fycompa’s patent protection is expected to last until May, 2025, with the possibility of extending it into 2026, the Florida-based company said.
The agreement will include the transfer of some U.S.-based Eisai employees to Catalyst.
Catalyst’s only other marketed drug is Firdapse (amiphampridine), which won approval in 2019 for Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome, a neuromuscular disease. Catalyst reported an 18% revenue increase in 2021 to $141 million. But Firdapse sales are growing quickly, reaching $57 million in the third quarter of this year, a 59% increase from the third quarter of 2021.
As for Eisai, its fiscal-year 2020 sales came in at around $7 billion.
Fycompa pills hit the market in 2012 as an adjunctive therapy before Eisai gained subsequent FDA approvals in 2016 with an oral suspension formulation and in 2017 for its use as a monotherapy.
These days, Eisai's focus is on lecanemab. The Alzheimer’s drug is speeding toward approval with a Jan. 6 target date after producing eye-opening trial results in September. By 2031, sales of the antibody could exceed $2 billion, according to analysts at RBC Capital Markets.