Navidea Biopharmaceuticals (NYSE:NAVB) said today that it inked a definitive asset purchase agreement with Cardinal Health (NYSE:CAH) for its Lymphoseek product.
Dublin, Ohio-based Navidea said it’s due to receive $80 million at closing for the lymphatic mapping and lymph node biopsy product, plus the opportunity for $230 million in milestone payments through 2026. More than $20 million of that amount is guaranteed over the next 3 years.
According to the agreement, Cardinal Health will license a portion of the IP back to Navidea so the company can develop and commercialize immunodiagnostic and therapeutic products in North America. Navidea will also continue to produce and sell Lymphoseek under a different brand outside of North America.
“This transaction is very exciting for Navidea and its shareholders as it will enable the company to extinguish the CRG debt and to focus the company on several attractive development efforts. With our proven delivery system and broad pipeline of clinical and preclinical products addressing very large commercial opportunities, we intend to build a world-class and highly focused development effort,” Navidea president & CEO Dr. Michael Goldberg said in prepared remarks. “We will leverage our team and financial resources by continuing to seek non-dilutive grant funding and partnerships with leading academic and commercial entities. We have successfully completed two grant-funded clinical studies in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Cardiovascular disease with academic collaborators and have continued our progress with other successful preclinical studies with candidates from our proprietary macrophage therapeutics pipeline.”
