Viracta Therapeutics Reacquires Exclusive Development and Commercialization Rights for its All-Oral Combination Therapy in China
Viracta Therapeutics, Inc., a precision oncology company targeting virus-associated malignancies, today announced that it has reacquired the exclusive rights to develop and commercialize its all-oral combination product candidate in the People’s Republic of China previously licensed to Shenzhen Salubris Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. (Salubris). Pursuant to the mutual termination agreement between Viracta and Salubris, all development and commercialization rights under the license have been returned to Viracta in exchange for a $4.0 million cash payment to Salubris.
“We thank the Salubris team for their support of Viracta and their collaborative contributions. As Viracta’s strategic focus remains in precision oncology and Salubris focuses their development efforts on cardiovascular and related disease areas, we agreed the reversion of these rights to Viracta was in the best interest of patients,” said Ivor Royston, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Viracta. “China represents an important geographical region for the treatment of patients with EBV-associated cancers. We believe regaining the development and commercial rights in China will enable Viracta to expand our global development strategy and has the potential to unlock significant, long-term and unencumbered value to our shareholders.”
Viracta’s combination therapy of nanatinostat, its proprietary investigational drug, and valganciclovir is currently being evaluated in a global Phase 2 pivotal trial for the treatment of patients with Epstein-Barr virus-positive (EBV+) lymphoma. Viracta has also received United States Food and Drug Administration clearance of an Investigational New Drug application to proceed into a global Phase 1b/2 trial evaluating its combination therapy in patients with EBV+ recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma and other EBV+ solid tumors. Initiation of this Phase 1b/2 trial is expected in the second half of 2021.
