Ul­tragenyx bets up to $304M on an old No­var­tis drug for an ul­tra-rare bone dis­ease

Sev­er­al months af­ter get­ting its sec­ond FDA nod for Crysvi­ta, Ul­tragenyx is bet­ting up to $304 mil­lion on an­oth­er meta­bol­ic bone dis­ease can­di­date — and this one is an old No­var­tis drug from Mereo Bio­Phar­ma’s pipeline.

On Fri­day, Ul­tragenyx and Mereo shook hands on a deal that gives the for­mer rights to de­vel­op and com­mer­cial­ize setrusum­ab, a mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body for the rare ge­net­ic dis­or­der os­teo­ge­n­e­sis im­per­fec­ta (OI), which caus­es frag­ile bones that break eas­i­ly, loose joints and weak­ened teeth. Ul­tragenyx is drop­ping $50 mil­lion up­front and has promised up to $254 mil­lion in mile­stones. It’ll be re­spon­si­ble for de­vel­op­ing the drug — and if all goes well, com­mer­cial­iz­ing it world­wide (ex­cept for Eu­rope, where Mereo held on­to the mar­ket­ing rights).

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