Dive Brief:
- AstraZeneca said Thursday it will pay Roche's Chugai Pharmaceutical unit $775 million to resolve years of disputes over patents for the rare disease drug Ultomiris.
- The two companies are now moving to withdraw lawsuits filed in the U.S. and Japan. AstraZeneca will pay Chugai in the second quarter, and neither company will be on the hook for further payments or royalties.
- Chugai said it's reviewing the impact of the incoming cash on its financial guidance for 2022 and will update investors in the future. AstraZeneca said the payment won't affect its own estimates for the year.
Dive Insight:
The settlement removes a lingering headache from AstraZeneca's $39 billion purchase of rare disease drugmaker Alexion, which brought Ultomiris into the U.K. drugmaker's portfolio last year.
Ultomiris works in a unique way to regulate the immune system, blocking a protein that can cause the body to overreact to the threat from disease and attack healthy cells. Currently approved in the U.S. to treat two rare conditions, the therapy had sales of $391 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. AstraZeneca also has its eye on new uses for the drug, which is viewed as a successor to Alexion's blockbuster product Soliris.
Alexion and Chugai had been battling over intellectual rights related to Ultomiris at least since 2016, when Alexion challenged Chugai patents in Europe and Japan. Chugai in 2018 filed patent lawsuits against Alexion in both Japan and the U.S. and added a third in the U.S. in 2019.
AstraZeneca completed the acquisition of Alexion in July and set it up as the rare disease unit within the larger company. The buyout immediately positioned AstraZeneca as a leader in the burgeoning field of rare disease drugs, where an effective therapy can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Alexion has five approved medicines to treat seven different rare diseases and employs more than 3,000 people.