Cornerstone Therapeutics, a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on acquiring, developing and commercializing proprietary products for the hospital and respiratory markets, today announced that it has acquired Cardiokine Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on developing hospital products for cardiovascular indications. The merger was effective Dec. 30, 2011.
Under the terms of the agreement, Cornerstone will acquire all outstanding shares of Cardiokine which is located in Philadelphia.
Cardiokine recently completed a series of phase III clinical trials for its lead compound, lixivaptan for treatment of hyponatremia, and filed a New Drug Application (NDA) with the FDA on Dec. 29, 2011.
Lixivaptan is an orally active, selective vasopressin 2 receptor antagonist and has the potential to address a large unmet medical need as current treatment options have significant limitations that have impeded adoption by many hospitals.
“We are very excited about adding a hospital product to complement Curosurf, our neonatal lung surfactant. This is the first of several deals we hope to complete as we continue to execute the strategic plan that we initiated in 2011,” said Craig A. Collard, Cornerstone’s Chief Executive Officer. “The hyponatremia market is expected to grow significantly in the coming years and currently has limited treatment alternatives. The acquisition of Cardiokine allows Cornerstone to expand our pipeline into a new area of treatment and creates the potential to use our hospital specialty expertise to help meet the needs of patients with hyponatremia.” Mr. Collard continued, “Consistent with our stated strategic intent, we expect this transaction to be accretive within the first full year following launch. Additionally, we will continue the ex-U.S. licensing discussions initiated by Cardiokine, which present the opportunity for incremental revenue.” “The clinical trials of lixivaptan were conducted in addition to current standard care in patients with hyponatremia associated with heart failure and the syndrome of inappropriate hormone secretion (SIADH), and comprise the largest placebo-controlled dataset to date in these populations,” said Cesare Orlandi, MD, former Cardiokine Chief Medical Officer, who will continue his work on lixivaptan as a consultant to Cornerstone.
