BioCentury
ARTICLE | Company News

Epirus, Polpharma deal

August 10, 2015 7:00 AM UTC

Epirus partnered with Polpharma to develop and commercialize biosimilars BOW015, BOW050 and BOW070. BOW015 is a biosimilar of Remicade infliximab from Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ, New Brunswick, N.J.) and Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE:MRK, Kenilworth, N.J.); BOW050 is a biosimilar of Humira adalimumab from AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV, Chicago, Ill.); and BOW070 is a biosimilar of Actemra tocilizumab from Roche (SIX:ROG; OTCQX:RHHBY, Basel, Switzerland). The three drugs are marketed for autoimmune indications.

Epirus will be responsible for process development, scale-up and manufacturing, and Polpharma will be responsible for commercialization in the Middle East, Turkey, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and most of Europe. Epirus has other commercialization partnerships for BOW015, but retains U.S. rights to commercialize the biosimilar as well as rights to commercialize BOW050 and BOW070 to territories not belonging to Polpharma. The companies will collaborate on regulatory submissions. ...