Zealand Pharma to pay $20M upfront in OTR Therapeutics license agreement

OTR Therapeutics and Zealand Pharma (ZLDPF) announced a multi-program strategic collaboration and license agreement to discover and develop novel therapeutics for metabolic diseases. The collaboration brings together Zealand Pharma’s expertise in obesity and metabolic health with OTR Therapeutics’ proprietary R&D platform to develop treatment options for people living with metabolic diseases. Under the terms of the agreement, OTR Therapeutics and Zealand Pharma will co-discover and co-develop therapies for multiple targets in metabolic diseases. OTR Therapeutics will leverage its proprietary discovery platform to conduct research and preclinical development. Zealand Pharma will assume responsibility for clinical development, regulatory submissions and commercialization worldwide. OTR Therapeutics will receive an initial upfront payment of $20M, which may increase to $30M under certain pre-agreed conditions, and is eligible for potential pre-specified preclinical, development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments. The potential total consideration is up to $2.5B, with the majority representing commercial milestones. OTR Therapeutics is also eligible to receive tiered single-digit royalties on worldwide net sales of any commercialized products resulting from the collaboration.