Circassia acquires North American and Japanese rights to dopexamine
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Circassia has bought the US, Canadian and Japanese development and commercialisation rights to dopexamine from Ipsen for an undisclosed sum. The UK speciality biopharmaceutical company focusing on allergy and critical care is developing dopexamine in a new indication as an integral part of structured protocols designed to improve patient recovery following a range of high-risk surgery. This approach, which Circassia has patented as ToleroCare, combines the use of dopexamine with the administration of intravenous fluids to improve tissue oxygenation levels during recovery after surgery. ToleroCare has achieved proof-of-concept in a Phase II single-blind randomised controlled trail in 122 high-risk general surgery patients in the UK. The drug is approved in Europe for indications related to heart failure but is not yet approved in North America or Japan. Circassia is establishing a commercial-scale supply chain for the product with pharmaceutical manufacturers Excella and Hospira. It is also developing vaccines for allergies to cats, ragweed, dustmites and grass, and ToleroTrans, a T-cell epitote desensitisation technology for use in organ transplantation (Scrip Online, July 16th, 2007).