Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS) and Oncolys BioPharma Inc., a privately held biotechnology company based in Japan, announced that the companies have signed a definitive agreement under which Bristol-Myers Squibb will acquire exclusive worldwide rights to manufacture, develop and commercialize festinavir, a once-a-day, orally available nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) in phase II development for HIV.

Under the terms of the agreement, Oncolys may receive up to $286 million including upfront, development, regulatory and sales milestone payments. Oncolys is also eligible to receive tiered royalties on the worldwide product sales.

"Bristol-Myers Squibb has been dedicated to helping patients prevail over HIV for more than two decades and is committed to the ongoing discovery, development and delivery of medicines to fight HIV/AIDS globally," said Brian Daniels, senior vice president, Development. "The profile of festinavir offers the possibility of improvement in the safety of long-term HIV treatment, an area of significant unmet medical need."

President & CEO of Oncolys BioPharma, Yasuo Urata said, "I'm honoured to have completed this license agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb for the development and commercialization of festinavir. For many years I have been working for the development of medicines in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and I'm convinced that festinavir has the possibility to be a potent and effective NRTI with a promising resistance profile. Also festinavir's once-daily dosage is essential for treating HIV patients worldwide."

Festinavir is a next-generation, orally available nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) in phase II development for HIV. Early preclinical studies suggest that festinavir could have an improved safety profile over previous generations of NRTIs. Festinavir was licensed to Oncolys in 2006 from Yale University.

Bristol-Myers Squibb is a global biopharmaceutical company whose mission is to discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases.

Oncolys BioPharma is a clinical-stage Japanese biotechnology company whose mission is to serve patients, and develop effective, innovative, and safe drugs through novel approaches with the goal of treating people worldwide from cancer and serious infectious diseases.