NEW HAVEN, CT, USA and NANJING, China I November 4, 2019 I Simcere Pharmaceutical Group and Aeromics, Inc. today announce collaboration and exclusive license agreement for AER-271, a clinical-stage anti-edema therapy, being developed for the treatment of stroke and other indications, in Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan). According to the agreement, Simcere will be responsible for the clinical development and commercialization of AER-271 in Greater China.

“We are delighted to be working with Simcere to develop AER-271 in China.  Simcere’s leading position in the Greater China stroke market, their strengths in manufacturing and the collaborative nature of their team made for an ideal partner for Aeromics,” said Thomas Zindrick, Aeromics’ Executive Vice Chairman.

Dr. Pin Wang, CSO of Simcere stated on the collaboration, “Edema is a serious complication among many common illnesses of the central nervous system (CNS) such as brain injury and cerebrovascular diseases, with a huge unmet medical need. Aeromics has an excellent research team and expertise in the stroke area, while Simcere has extensive experience in the drug development and commercialization of CNS diseases. We are pleased to have the opportunity to collaborate with Aeromics and hope we will bring AER-271 to patients soon with our joint efforts.” 

Dr. Peter Agre, Aeromics Board member, the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovery of the aquaporin water channels and commented, “By bringing together the complementary expertise of Aeromics and Simcere, I am very gratified we will together advance the development of a therapeutic for a significant unmet medical need, based on the initial insights into aquaporin biology.”

Under terms of the collaboration, Aeromics will receive an up-front payment and additional payments contingent on certain development, regulatory, and commercial milestones, plus tiered royalties on net sales ranging from high single digit to double digit percentages. Simcere will be responsible for leading development and commercialization of AER-271 in Greater China and will receive a single-digit percentage royalty from the net sales of AER-271 in the rest of the world. Detailed financial terms were not disclosed.

About Stroke

Every 20-30 seconds someone in China suffers from a stroke. Roughly 2,500,000 strokes are seen in China each year, many of which suffer life-threatening and severely disabling cerebral edema, or brain swelling, and may benefit from an anti-edema medication. Aquaporin-4 (AQP4) water channels are the primary route of water movement into the central nervous system under conditions of ischemia.

About AER-271

AER-271 is a first-in-class, proprietary, intravenous (IV) prodrug that delivers AER-270, a potent inhibitor of AQP4 water channels for the treatment cerebral edema (brain swelling) in patients that have suffered ischemic strokes.  AER-271 is an investigational drug that has successfully completed a Phase 1 study and is not yet approved by any regulatory agency.

About Aeromics

Aeromics is a privately held, clinical-stage pharmaceutical company dedicated to fundamentally changing the way various conditions resulting from the loss of water homeostasis are treated.

For more information about AER-271 and Aeromics, please visit www.aeromics.com
Contact:  Trevor Thompson, trevor.thompson@aeromics.com

About Simcere

Simcere is a research and development-driven Chinese pharmaceutical company with a State Key Lab of Translational Medicine and Innovative Drug Development, committed to delivering high quality and effective therapies to patients. Simcere achieves this by focusing its efforts on therapeutic areas of neurology, oncology, inflammation/immunology diseases etc. By leverage of its commercial capability, all top products of the company have a leading market share in China. Simcere continues to promote the advance of international scientific and medical breakthroughs through an open and collaborative R&D strategy, and extensive strategic partnerships with several multi-national companies.

SOURCE: Aeromics