After sharing plans to shutter last summer, Asarina Pharma has managed to sell off its Tourette syndrome candidate to Relmada Therapeutics, another struggling biotech.
Relmada, which has turned to strategic options after scrapping two phase 3 trials in major depressive disorder (MDD), is paying 2.75 million euros ($2.86 million) for full global rights to Asarina’s midstage candidate, dubbed sepranolone.
The purchase includes a $250,000 credit from a previous payment Relmada made for an exclusivity agreement related to the asset, representing a total purchase price of 3 million euros ($3.1 million), according to a Feb. 6 Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Sepranolone is a phase 2b-ready neurosteroid—also known as a neuroactive steroid—being developed for Tourette syndrome and other compulsion-related conditions, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Swedish company Asarina revealed in April 2023 that the therapy reduced tic severity at 12 weeks by 28% according to a common rating scale of disease severity called the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale, compared to 12.6% in patients with Tourette’s who received standard of care. The open-label phase 2a study also hit key secondary endpoints, including improving quality of life, and there were no systemic side effects observed.
“While current treatments for Tourette syndrome provide only modest tic reduction and are often accompanied by significant side effects, the phase 2a data suggest that sepranolone has the potential to offer meaningful symptom relief with a more favorable safety profile,” Luca Pani, M.D., a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine and chief advisor for Relmada, said in a Feb. 6 press release.
Relmada plans to hold an investor event about its next steps for sepranolone later this year, according to the release. The Florida-based biotech will also continue exploring other strategic opportunities.
The company began searching for options at the end of last year, coming when a data monitoring committee found that one of its late-stage trials in MDD would likely miss its main goal. The biotech then scrapped two trials and began considering a range of options, including a merger, buying or selling assets, or selling the company entirely.
As for Asarina, the company worked for more than a year to get someone to snap up sepranolone. With no takers emerging by June 2024, the biotech asked shareholders to vote to liquidate, with the move approved in August. In October, the Swedish biotech delisted from the Nasdaq market in Stockholm.