Biovail, Labopharm shares jump on U.S. marketing deal
Last Updated: Friday, November 4, 2005 | 4:17 PM ET
CBC News
Biovail shares (TSX:BVF) jumped $1.43 to a new 52-week high of $30.11. Labopharm shares (TSX:DDS) rose 61 cents to $4.89.
After the market closed Thursday, Biovail announced it had won a 10-year contract with Ortho-McNeil, a division of U.S. drug giant Johnson & Johnson, to market and distribute Biovail's once-daily, extended-release and immediate release formulations of tramadol.
The drug will be launched in early 2006 under the brand name Ultram.
Biovail's version of extended-release tramadol is currently the only one approved for sale in the United States.
"The approval of our ER [extended release] and ODT [orally-disentegrating] tramadol products represents the culmination of several years of perseverance, commitment and confidence in our technologies and formulation expertise," said Biovail CEO Eugene Melnyk, in a statement.
The deal calls for Ortho-McNeil to give Biovail a $60-million US pre-payment.
Laval-based Labopharm also has a version of once-a-day tramadol (Tramadol OAD), but it is not yet approved for sale in the U.S.
But its shares spiked Friday because Labopharm has won a waiver that could allow the FDA to grant approval to its version, despite the three-year exclusivity period granted to Biovail's extended-release tramadol formulation.
Labopharm got the waiver because its U.S. marketing partner, Purdue Pharma, has several patents covering extended release tramadol formulations.
"This is about reducing risk while at the same time removing uncertainty with respect to the commercialization of our once-daily tramadol product in the U.S.," said Labopharm CEO James Howard-Tripp.
Labopharm hopes to launch its once-daily tramadol product in the U.S. as early as the fourth-quarter of 2006.
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