MAP Pharmaceuticals, Inc has received a notice of termination of the license agreement with AstraZeneca related to the company's Unit Dose Budesonide (UDB) product candidate. The termination was received on July 8, 2009, effective immediately. All rights licensed to AstraZeneca in the agreement now revert to the company. MAP Pharmaceuticals plans to suspend development of UDB, which did not meet primary endpoints in a phase-3 trial in children 12-months to eight years of age with mild asthma.
"Physicians and parents continue to express a need for improved therapies for paediatric asthma that offer faster nebulization times, lower doses of steroid exposure, improved treatment compliance and reduced side effects when compared to currently available therapies. MAP Pharmaceuticals is considering options for its paediatric asthma program moving forward, including the development of a next generation therapy with budesonide," said Timothy S. Nelson, president and chief executive officer of MAP Pharmaceuticals. "Separately, MAP Pharmaceuticals remains focused on developing our Levadex migraine therapy, which recently achieved all four primary endpoints in a phase-3 clinical trial, with the goal of bringing this differentiated treatment to the many patients who suffer from the debilitating effects of migraine."
MAP Pharmaceuticals will provide updated financial guidance for 2009 in its second quarter results release. MAP Pharmaceuticals finished the first quarter of 2009 with cash and cash equivalents of $67.7 million and $4.7 million in accounts receivables.
MAP Pharma is dedicated to developing and commercializing new therapies for patients suffering from conditions that are not adequately treated by currently available medicines.