Cytos Biotechnology AG announced Wednesday that it has entered into a global commercial license agreement with Novartis for the development, manufacturing and commercialization of CYT002-NicQb, a therapeutic vaccine in phase II clinical development for the treatment of nicotine addiction.
Novartis will hold world-wide exclusive rights for CYT002-NicQb, in addition to being responsible for late stage clinical development, manufacturing, and commercialization of the vaccine.
Cytos could receive up to $496 million in upfront and potential development, regulatory approval and sales milestone payments. Cytos will also receive royalty payments on nets sales of products.
“The vaccine market, including therapeutic vaccines, represents an increasingly attractive segment of the healthcare market and is an additional source of growth for large pharmaceutical companies,” said Dr. Mark Dyer, EVP Business Development of Cytos. “Licensing our phase II product candidate to Novartis, a top-tier healthcare company with strong in-house vaccines’ expertise, maximizes the opportunity to build CYT002-NicQb as a first-in-class product to treat nicotine addiction.”