Janssen Returns Rights of Obesity and Diabetes Treatment

Hanmi Pharmaceutical’s head office in Seoul

Hanmi Pharmaceutical announced on July 3 that its partner Janssen has returned the rights of the obesity and diabetes treatment HM12525A that the Korean pharmaceutical company has licensed out for 1 trillion won.

Hanmi Pharmaceutical does not have to return a down payment of US$105 million (about 123 billion won) it has already received from Janssen.

Hanmi Pharmaceutical said, "Janssen informed us that the treatment reached the primary goal of weight loss in phase 2 clinical trials conducted on two obesity patients, but failed to meet the internal standard of blood sugar control in obesity patients with diabetes.”

"Although Janssen decided to return the rights, the results of the Phase 2 clinical trials have proven its efficacy as an obesity treatment," the company added.

Hanmi Pharmaceutical has previously received the license rights of the BTK inhibitor (LY3337641 / MH71224) back from its partner Lilly in January 2015. Lilly terminated the clinical trials and returned the rights to Hanmi when it saw a high possibility of failure to demonstrate the targeted efficacy in the interim analysis of Phase 2 of the BTK inhibitor rheumatoid arthritis patients.

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