Biotech major Biocon has won the bid for acquiring all the assets of Nobex Corporation, a US-based drug development company specialising in a proprietary drug delivery system to enable oral delivery of peptide drugs, for $5 million and certain back-end royalties. Announcing this on Tuesday, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson and managing director of Biocon, said: "This is truly a strategic acquisition, which provides us with an immensely valuable intellectual property (IP) platform. It also gives us full ownership of our on-going oral insulin and oral B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) programmes.""The acqusition also provides us access to additional innovative technologies and new therapeutic paradigms. We have acquired an IP estate of nearly 300 patents and patent applications focused on oral peptide therapeutics in the metabolic and cardiovascular segment," she added. Biocon proposes to leverage these proprietary assets through a combination of licensing and co-development partnerships. Biocon believes that the future of the pharmaceutical industry lies in innovation and proposes to focus on IP and technology to make them a strong differentiator.Biocon and Nobex had earlier entered into an alliance for the global co-development and commercialisation of oral insulin and oral BNP. Nobex's core competence is its proprietary medicinal chemistry which constitutes a powerful and well-protected IP estate. This core competence has very broad potential applications that run well beyond the present scope of the company's business strategy -- oral delivery of therapeutic peptides.Nobex, after running out of money last year, filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11. Following this, the Delaware Bankruptcy Court conducted an auction on March 16 and approved Biocon's bid.The assets acquired by Biocon include IN-105, an oral insulin for type 2 diabetes, BN-054, an oral B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) for cardiovascular disease, Oratonin, an oral calcitonin in phase 1 trials for osteoporosis, Oral PTH (Para Thyroid Hormone) and APAZA, an oral small molecule drug in phase 1/2 trials for inflammatory bowel disease.
