SAN
DIEGO, Aug. 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Rakuten
Medical, Inc., a global biotechnology company developing and
commercializing precision, cell targeting therapies based on its
proprietary Alluminox™ platform today announces an exclusive
licensing and commercialization agreement with Hikma
Pharmaceuticals PLC (Hikma), a multinational pharmaceutical company
for the Middle East and
North Africa (MENA).
Under the terms of the agreement, Hikma has an exclusive license
to commercialize products in Rakuten Medical's pipeline using its
photoimmunotherapy technology platform, Alluminox™, in all its MENA
markets.
Commenting on the agreement, Mickey Mikitani, Co-CEO of Rakuten
Medical, said: "We are already developing Alluminox treatment in
several countries and regions, including the United States, Japan, Taiwan, and India, and this agreement further accelerates
our global expansion. With Hikma's strong regional footprint and
medical expertise, we expect the Alluminox™ platform to make
significant progress in MENA."
Mazen Darwazah, Hikma's Executive Vice Chairman and President of
MENA, added: "This agreement allows us to work with an excellent
global partner to strengthen our growing portfolio in oncology and
biotechnology. Most importantly, this allows us to bring a
potentially transformative technology to cancer patients in MENA,
helping to put better health within reach, everyday."
* Rakuten Medical's therapies based on Alluminox™ platform
are investigational outside of Japan, and not approved in MENA for
investigational or commercial use.
About Hikma
Hikma helps put better health within reach
every day for millions of people around the world. For more than 45
years, we've been creating high-quality medicines and making them
accessible to the people who need them. Headquartered in the UK, we
are a global company with a local presence across North America, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Europe, and we use our unique insight and
expertise to transform cutting-edge science into innovative
solutions that transform people's lives. We're committed to our
customers, and the people they care for, and by thinking creatively
and acting practically, we provide them with a broad range of
branded and non-branded generic medicines. Together, our 8,700
colleagues are helping to shape a healthier world that enriches all
our communities. We are a leading licensing partner, and through
our venture capital arm, are helping bring innovative health
technologies to people around the world. For more information,
please visit: www.hikma.com
Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC (LSE: HIK) (NASDAQ Dubai: HIK) (OTC: HKMPY)
(LEI:549300BNS685UXH4JI75) (rated BBB-/stable S&P and
Ba1/stable Moody's)
About Rakuten Medical, Inc.
Rakuten Medical, Inc. is
a global biotechnology company developing and commercializing
precision, cell targeting therapies based on its proprietary
Alluminox™ platform, which, in pre-clinical studies, has been shown
to induce rapid and selective cell killing and tumor necrosis.
Alluminox therapies have not yet been approved outside of
Japan. Rakuten Medical is
committed to its mission to conquer cancer by delivering our
innovative treatments as quickly as possible to as many patients as
possible all over the world. The company has offices in 6
countries, including the United
States, where it is headquartered, Japan, the
Netherlands, Taiwan,
Switzerland and India. For more information, visit
www.rakuten-med.com.
About Alluminox™ platform
The Alluminox™ platform is an investigational technology platform
based on a cancer therapy called photoimmunotherapy, which was
developed by Dr. Hisataka Kobayashi and team from the
National Cancer Institute in the United States. Rakuten Medical is developing
the Alluminox platform as a technology consisting of a drug,
device, and other related components. The drug component of the
platform consists of a targeting moiety conjugated with one or more
dyes leading to selective cell surface binding. The device
component consists of a light source that locally illuminates the
targeted cells with light to transiently activate the
drug. Pre-clinical data have shown that this activation
elicits rapid and selective necrosis of targeted cells through a
biophysical process that compromises the membrane integrity of the
targeted cells. Therapies developed on the Alluminox platform may
also result in local and systemic innate and adaptive immune
activation due to immunogenic cell death of the targeted cancer
cells and/or the removal of targeted immunosuppressive cells within
the tumor microenvironment. Outside of Japan, Alluminox
therapies have not yet been approved by any regulatory
authority.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward looking statements that
correspond to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include various
risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that may cause Rakuten
Medical's business plans and results to differ from the anticipated
results and expectations expressed in these statements. These
"forward looking statements" contain information about the status
and development of our products, including the Alluminox™ platform,
as well as other regulatory and marketing authorization efforts,
the potential benefits, efficacy, and safety of therapies created
using the Alluminox platform, and the status of regulatory filings.
The approval and commercial success of the product may not be
achieved. Forward looking statements relate to the potential
benefits, efficacy, and safety of our therapies, and the status of
regulatory filings. Such statements may include words such as
"expect," "believe," "hope," "estimate," "looks as though,"
"anticipate," "intend," "may," "suggest," "plan," "strategy,"
"will," and "do", and are based on our current beliefs. In
addition, this press release uses terms such as "important,"
"notable," and "abnormal" to express opinions about clinical trial
data. Ongoing clinical trial studies include various risks and
uncertainties, in particular, problems that arise during the
manufacturing stage of our therapies, the occurrence of adverse
safety events, situations in failure to demonstrate therapeutic
benefits, and other various risks and uncertainties, both
reasonable and unreasonable. For this reason, actual results,
including regulatory approvals and uncertainties in the
commercialization process of our therapies, may differ from
published information. Except to the extent required by applicable
law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update this or any
other forward-looking statement, whether because of new
information, future developments or events, changes in assumptions,
changes in the factors affecting forward-looking statements. If one
or more forward-looking statement(s) is updated, no inference
should be drawn that additional updates will be made to those or
other forward-looking statements.
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SOURCE Rakuten Medical, Inc.