Anthera Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a developmental-stage biopharmaceutical company, has acquired Sollpura (liprotamase), an investigational pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy from Eli Lilly and Company. Sollpura is a soluble, stable and non-porcine enzyme product intended for the treatment of patients with low digestive enzyme levels, or exocrine pancreatic Insufficiency due to cystic fibrosis and potentially other diseases. Sollpura is provided in oral capsules and sachet form, and the company intends to begin a Phase III  trial in the United States and Europe in 2015.

Anthera intends to sublicense all rights, obligations, and intellectual property for the development and commercialization of Sollpura to Alkira Therapeutics, Inc., a developmental-stage biopharmaceutical company. In the future, Alkira will secure appropriate funding as a wholly owned subsidiary of Anthera to advance Sollpura into a Phase III pivotal registration trial as agreed with the United States Food and Drug Administration. It is intended that Alkira will make all future contingent milestone payments under the license agreement upon product approval and on certain annual sales achievements and will make royalty payments on any product sales after achieving certain sales thresholds of cumulative net sales of Sollpura.

Concurrent with the transaction, Anthera announced the appointment of Chuck Olson , D.Sc. as President of Alkira. Dr. Olson will oversee development activities for Sollpura, including product manufacturing for the upcoming Phase III clinical trial to begin in mid- 2015. Olson has nearly 30 years of biotechnology industry experience, including specialized expertise in purification development and process transfer in executing transitions from R&D to manufacturing and clinical product manufacturing to commercialization.

Source: Anthera Pharmaceuticals