Ann: Joint development and licensing agreement for Zafirlukast, page-2

This is an absolutely spectacular and company changing announcement. Hovione is a multi-national drug and device manufacturer headquartered in Portugal. It employs 1200 people and its expertise is in drug manufacture and formulation. It has developed a dry powder inhaler, no doubt at great expense, and from its web site does not have much product to utilise its intellectual property. To me it looks like a perfect fit with Invion. I always like win/win deals which make sense for both parties. Remember that Zeneca had successful phase 2 trials with this drug as an inhaled product twenty years ago and proved efficacy and safety. The trials ceased because they were using CFCs as a propellant and with the banning of CFCs they were unable to develop an alternative propellant. Hovione would not have signed a deal unless they had this problem solved and they have the expertise to achieve this. So much for last weeks post dismissing Zafirlukast. I actually agree that Nadilol is a much more valuable property, but Z looks like a much earlier product to market. We will see what the market thinks of this but it is totally company changing.