Windtree Therapeutics has not been shy about its desire to become a revenue-generating company, even when achieving that goal meant stepping outside the world of drug development. Now, the company is further divesting itself from biotech, selling its cardiovascular pipeline to Seismic Pharmaceutical Holdings.
Windtree’s clutch of cardio assets includes phase 2 candidates for acute heart failure, cardiogenic shock and hypertension, as well as a preclinical chronic heart failure candidate.
In return for shaking up its pipeline, Windtree will receive 20% of any proceeds that Seismic makes from the assets down the line, the biotech said in a Dec. 23 release. In addition, if Seismic raises at least $10 million to fund the development of the candidates, Windtree will net $700,000.
While Windtree didn't disclose the specific assets being sold, if all cardiovascular candidates are offloaded the company would have only one preclinical cancer asset left in its pipeline, according to the biotech's website.
“We are proud of the work Windtree has done to develop the drug candidates and to enter into an agreement where there is no more obligation for our company to fund development while receiving rights to potentially significant future payments from proceeds,” Windtree CEO Jed Latkin said in the release.
Despite the “therapeutics” in its name, Windtree has made moves this year to diversify its business, a manner atypical for a biotech. In May, the cash-strapped company bought a 436-unit residential property in Houston and, in June, inked a deal to acquire a Michigan waste management company, only to later back out.
And earlier this month, Pennsylvania-based Windtree revealed its intention to acquire tech finance company CommLoan and make the firm a subsidiary.
Meanwhile, in nearby Rochester, New York, Vaccinex has secured a strange financing arrangement to advance its beleaguered lead asset into a phase 2b Alzheimer’s disease trial.
The biotech’s board chair, Albert Friedberg, has formed an investment entity called Pepinemab Development Venture, which has entered into a $60 million revenue-sharing agreement with Vaccinex to power the study of pepinemab, the company said in a Dec. 23 release.
In exchange for funding, the new venture will receive half of any money Vaccinex earns from a development partner or licensee of pepinemab in a neurology indication, or 25% for a non-neuro indication.
Pepinemab is a semaphorin 4D inhibitor that Vaccinex pivoted to Alzheimer’s after the candidate failed a phase 2 test in Huntington’s disease.