Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated announced that it has entered into a Captisol supply agreement with Merck & Co., Inc. for an undisclosed programme. Ligand will supply clinical and commercial supplies of Captisol and, if the programme is approved for commercialization, expects to deliver multiple metric tons of Captisol annually. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We are extremely pleased to enter into a long-term commercial supply agreement for this Captisol-enabled programme,” said Matt Foehr, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Ligand Pharmaceuticals. “This collaboration with Merck is a good example of the type of relationships we try to build with our partners. Merck used Captisol to reformulate a drug in their portfolio and performed initial proof of concept under a research use agreement.”

“This announcement marks the natural transition of the programme to a full commercial supply relationship as commercialization approaches,” added Foehr. “This deal has the potential to add meaningful revenue to the Ligand business in the coming years and extends the already significant partnering relationship that we have developed with Merck over the past few years.”

Captisol is a patent protected, chemically modified cyclodextrin with a structure designed to optimize the solubility and stability of drugs. This unique technology was originally developed by Ligand's subsidiary company CyDex Pharmaceuticals and has enabled five FDA approved products, including Pfizer's Vfend IV and Prism Pharmaceuticals' Nexterone. There are currently over twenty Captisol-enabled products in development, including Onyx pharmaceuticals' carfilzomib programme.

Ligand is a biopharmaceutical company with a business model that is based upon the concept of developing or acquiring royalty revenue generating assets and coupling them to a lean corporate cost structure. Its goal is to produce a bottom line that supports a sustainably profitable business.