PharmaEngine Inc (智擎) shares moved higher yesterday after the biopharmaceutical company said it would obtain a re-license payment of US$7 million from US-based Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Inc for sales of its new pancreatic cancer drug outside the US.
The company’s shares closed at NT$251.5 yesterday on the over-the-counter market, up by the daily maximum of 7 percent from the previous session and compared with a decline of 1.26 percent on the GRETAI index.
PharmaEngine struck a global licensing deal with Merrimack in May 2011 for the development and commercialization of PEP02, codenamed MM-398, with the exception of the Taiwan market, which falls under PharmaEngine.
On Wednesday, Merrimack announced that it had licensed distribution rights for the drug outside the US to Baxter International Inc, which has 250 branches and whose sales networks cover more than 100 countries.
Under the contract, PharmEngine can obtain extra milestone payments based on a certain percentage point, with a total amount of no more than US$15 million of the milestone payment, PharmaEngine said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
As Merrimack is to submit the new drug application for PEP02 to the US authorities in the near term, PharmaEngine could receive a milestone payment of US$5 million by April next year, the filing said.
“Given Baxter’s strong marketing ability, we are positive on the benefits of its cooperation with PharmaEngine and Merrimack,” Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) analyst Peggy Lee (李珮菁) said in a note.
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last