A drug delivery technology patent awarded to BioDelivery Sciences International (NASDAQ:BDSI) has triggered a $15 million milestone payment from drug partner Endo Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ENDP).
Raleigh, North Carolina-based BDSI said today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has formally awarded a patent for the company’s “Transmucosal Delivery Devices with Enhanced Uptake,” a patent that covers the company’s technology that delivers medication via a small piece of film that dissolves upon being placed on the inside of the cheek. The drug delivery technology is key to all of BDSI’s drug products.
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The USPTO had signaled earlier this year that it would issue a patent for the technology. In February, the patent office issued a notice of allowance, which means that a review found the application meets all the requirements for a patent.
The new patent expands protection for BDSI’s BEMA Buprenorphine and BEMA Buprenorphine/Naloxone, by seven years to 2027. That gives additional patent protection for the chronic pain treatment that Endo licensed from BDSI and aims to commercialize. In January, Endo licensed BDSI’s BEMA Buprenorphine in a deal that could pay BDSI up to $180 million if the pain treatment is successfully commercialized. The product candidate uses BDSI’s transmucosal drug delivery technology to administer the pain drug buprenorphine. To date, BDSI has received $45 million in milestone payments from its Endo drug partnership.
BDSI has commercialized one product so far with its drug delivery technology; Onsolis is a treatment for breakthrough pain in cancer patients. The company has said it expects to file a new drug application in the first half of 2013 for BEMA Buprenorphine/Naloxone, which the company is developing as a treatment for opioid dependence.
