Matt Gline is back with a new ‘vant’ company, after the Roivant Sciences CEO paid Bayer $14 million upfront for the rights to a phase 2-ready pulmonary hypertension drug.
The asset in question, mosliciguat, is an inhaled soluble guanylate cyclase activator in development for pulmonary hypertension associated with interstitial lung disease (PH-ILD). As well as the upfront fee, Roivant has agreed to hand out up to $280 million in potential milestone payments to Bayer for the exclusive worldwide rights, on top of royalties.
Roivant created a new subsidiary, Pulmovant, specifically to license the drug. The latest vant also announced today data from a phase 1 trial of 38 patients with PH that showed peak reduction in pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) of up to 38%. The biotech described these “clinically meaningful” data as “one of the highest reductions seen in PH trials to date.”
The inhaled prostacyclin Tyvaso is the only drug specifically approved for PH-ILD. The selling point of mosliciguat is that unlike other inhaled PH therapies, which require multiple inhalations at various points during the day, it only needs one inhalation a day, Roivant explained in a Sept. 10 release.
Pulmovant is now focused on “imminently” launching a global phase 2 of 120 patients with PH-ILD. With around 200,000 people in the U.S. and Europe living with PH-ILD, Pulmovant picked this indication “because of the lack of treatment options for patients coupled with the impressive phase 1b results and strong biologic rationale,” Pulmovant CEO Drew Fromkin said in a release.
Fromkin is no stranger to getting a nascent vant off the ground, having previously served as the first CEO of Proteovant Therapeutics until it was acquired by South Korea’s SK Biopharmaceuticals last year.
Fromkin said Tuesday morning that his latest vant has already assembled “a stellar team, alongside our world-class investigators and advisors, to advance and optimize mosliciguat’s development.”
“Mosliciguat has the incredibly rare advantage of potential differentiation across three separate key areas—efficacy, safety and convenience in administration,” Roivant’s Gline said in a release.
“We are impressed with the data generated so far, particularly the PVR results, and we believe its differentiated mechanism as an sGC activator can have maximal impact on PH-ILD patients, a large population with severe disease, high morbidity and mortality, and few treatment options,” Gline added.
Gline may have found space for another vant in his stable after selling off Telavant to Roche for $7.1 billion last year, telling Fierce Biotech in January that he still had “pangs of regret” about the decision.