Frontier Bio: Reached a global exclusive licensing agreement with GSK for siRNA products, will receive nearly $1 billion in milestone payments

Recently, Frontier Biotech announced that it has entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with global biopharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Under the agreement, GSK will obtain exclusive rights to develop, manufacture, and commercialize two small interfering RNA (siRNA) pipeline products worldwide, with one candidate drug already in the Investigational New Drug (IND) application stage and the other being a preclinical candidate.

According to the agreement, Frontier Biotech will receive a $40 million upfront payment and a $13 million milestone payment in the near term; additionally, it will potentially earn up to $950 million in total payments based on successful development, regulatory, and commercialization milestones for both projects, along with tiered royalties on global net sales of the two products. Frontier Biotech will be responsible for early development of the two pipeline products, including conducting Phase I clinical trials in China for one of the products and completing IND-supporting studies for the other. GSK will handle all subsequent global clinical development, regulatory submissions, and commercialization activities for both products.