Neurocrine + Xenon to Develop Treatments for Epilepsy

San Diego – December 20, 2019 – Cooley advised Neurocrine Biosciences on its licensing and collaboration agreement with Xenon Pharmaceuticals to develop first-in-class treatments for epilepsy. Cooley lawyers Kay Chandler, Jason Kent and Rena Kaminsky led the team advising Neurocrine.

Neurocrine will pay Xenon $50 million – $30 million upfront in cash and a $20 million equity investment – and up to $1.7 billion in additional development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments.

"We are excited to enter into this agreement with Xenon and leverage their expertise in precision medicine drug discovery to benefit the lives of people with epilepsy and serious neurological disorders," Kevin Gorman, CEO of Neurocrine, said in a statement. "The agreement with Xenon strengthens Neurocrine Biosciences' diverse and growing pipeline and reinforces our long-term commitment of becoming a leading neuroscience-focused biopharmaceutical company."

Under the agreement, Neurocrine gains an exclusive license to XEN901, a clinical-stage drug to treat pediatric patients with SCN8A developmental and epileptic encephalopathy and other forms of epilepsy, including focal epilepsy, as well as the rights to pre-clinical compounds under development to treat the disease. The agreement also includes a multi-year research collaboration to discover, identify and develop additional novel inhibitors.

Neurocrine, whose securities trade on the Nasdaq Global Select market under the symbol “NBIX,” is a neuroscience-focused, biopharmaceutical company with more than 25 years of experience discovering and developing life-changing treatments for people with serious, challenging and under-addressed neurological, endocrine and psychiatric disorders.

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