On January 24, 2023 we closed our acquisition of the U.S. rights to FYCOMPA®. In connection with the acquisition, we purchased Eisai’s regulatory approvals and documentation, product records, intellectual property, inventory, and other matters relating to the U.S. rights for FYCOMPA®, in exchange for a cash upfront payment of $160 million, plus $1.6 million for reimbursement of certain prepayments. Further, under certain circumstances, we may also be obligated to pay Eisai an additional cash payment of $25 million if a patent extension for FYCOMPA® until June 8, 2026 is approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Finally, we agreed to pay Eisai royalty payments after patent protection for FYCOMPA® expires, which royalty payments will be reduced upon generic equivalents to FYCOMPA® entering the market.
In conjunction with the closing of our acquisition of FYCOMPA®, we entered into two additional agreements with Eisai; a Transition Services Agreement and a Supply Agreement. Under the Transition Services Agreement, a U.S. subsidiary of Eisai is providing us with certain transitional services, and under the Supply Agreement, Eisai has agreed to manufacture FYCOMPA® for us for at least seven years at prices listed in the Supply Agreement (to be updated on a yearly basis).
Initially, following the closing of the acquisition, we began marketing FYCOMPA® in the U.S. through Eisai’s U.S. subsidiary under the Transition Services Agreement as we built our FYCOMPA® marketing and sales team, and on May 1, 2023, we took over the marketing program for FYCOMPA®. In that regard, we have hired approximately 34 sales and marketing personnel to support FYCOMPA®, most of whom previously worked in Eisai’s U.S. sales division marketing FYCOMPA®. We also have hired seven medical science liaisons to help us educate the medical community who treat epilepsy and the patients who have epilepsy about their disease and the benefits of FYCOMPA®.
Catalyst is supporting patients using FYCOMPA® through an Instant Savings Card Program. Through the program, eligible commercially insured patients could pay as little as $10 for their FYCOMPA® co-pay (with a maximum savings of $1,300 per year). The FYCOMPA® instant savings card program is not available to patients enrolled in state or federal healthcare programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, VA, DoD, or TRICARE.
Patent protection for FYCOMPA® is primarily from two patents listed in the Orange Book. The first, U.S. Patent No. 6,949,571 (the ‘571 patent), will expire no earlier than May 23, 2025, which is the current expiration date for the ‘571 patent that includes the USPTO’s current patent term extension calculation. A request for reconsideration of the agency’s patent term extension calculation to extend the period until June 8, 2026 was recently denied, and the Company is currently exploring its options to potentially obtain an extension of this patent term (and there can be no assurance that any extension of this patent term will be obtained). The second FYCOMPA® patent in the Orange Book is U.S. Patent No. 8,772,497 (the ‘497 patent) that expires on July 1, 2026. The ‘497 patent is the one that has been the subject of previous Paragraph IV certifications from three ANDA filers.
On February 20, 2023, Catalyst received a Paragraph IV Certification Notice Letter from a company that appears to have filed the first ANDA for the oral suspension formulation for FYCOMPA®. The same company sent a similar letter to the Company later in February with a similar certification for the tablet formulation for FYCOMPA®, the fourth such certification for this formulation. Both of these letters were paragraph IV certifications of non-infringement, non-validity, and unenforceability to the ‘497 patent for FYCOMPA® but each application, like the previous Paragraph IV notices from ANDA filers, for FYCOMPA® tablets does not challenge the ‘571 patent. Similar to our actions with the FIRDAPSE® Paragraph IV Certifications described above, after due diligence Catalyst filed lawsuits on April 5, 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey against the drug manufacturer who notified Catalyst of their ANDA submissions for both FYCOMPA® formulations, thus triggering the 30 month stay for each application.
AGAMREE®
On June 19, 2023, we entered into a License and Collaboration Agreement (License Agreement) and an Investment Agreement (Investment Agreement) with Santhera Pharmaceuticals Holding, Inc. (Santhera). Under the License Agreement, we contracted to obtain an exclusive North America license, manufacturing and supply agreement for Santhera’s investigational product candidate, AGAMREE® (vamorolone), a novel corticosteroid for the treatment of DMD. Under the Investment Agreement, we agreed to make a strategic investment into Santhera.
Both transactions closed on July 18, 2023. Under the License Agreement, upon closing, we made a $75 million payment to Santhera in return for the exclusive North American license for AGAMREE®. Additionally, following approval of the NDA for the drug, on October 26, 2023, we became obligated to make milestone payments of $36 million to Santhera, $26 million of which will be used by Santhera to make milestone payments to third parties. This payment will be made in the fourth quarter of 2023. We may also be obligated to pay future regulatory and commercial milestone payments to Santhera tied to calendar year sales of AGAMREE®, as well as commercial royalties. In addition to the rights to commercialize the product in North America, the License Agreement provides us with the right of first negotiation for AGAMREE® in Europe and Japan should Santhera pursue partnership opportunities in those territories. Additionally, we will hold the North American rights to any future approved indications for AGAMREE®.
Concurrently with the closing of the License Agreement, we made a strategic investment into Santhera in which we acquired 1,414,688 of Santhera’s post-reverse split ordinary shares (representing approximately 11.26% of Santhera’s outstanding ordinary shares following the transaction) at an investment price of CHF 9.477 per share (corresponding to a mutually agreed volume weighted average price prior to signing), with the approximately $15 million investment to be used by Santhera for Phase IV studies of AGAMREE® in DMD and future development of additional indications for AGAMREE®.
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