Israel-based biopharmaceutical company, D-Pharm, has entered into a licensing and co-development agreement with China’s Jiangsu NHWA Pharmaceutical to commercialize DP-VPA for epilepsy in China. DP-VPA is a novel drug discovered and developed by D-Pharm for treatment of patients with epilepsy, migraine and bipolar disorder. DP-VPA has completed a first phase II study in epilepsy patients.

Under the terms of the agreement D-Pharm will receive up-front and development milestone payments. In addition, upon reaching defined annual sales NHWA will pay to D-Pharm annual sales bonuses and royalties on DP-VPA sales over a certain threshold in China.

NHWA will be responsible for development, manufacturing and commercialization of DP-VPA in China. The development of DP-VPA in China will be performed in compliance with applicable US FDA standards and will be a part of the global development effort. D-Pharm and NHWA will also cooperate on development and optimization of the manufacturing process for DP-VPA.

Dr Alex Kozak, D-Pharm's CEO, commented, "I am delighted to have a partnership with NHWA, a prominent pharmaceutical company with an established presence in the Chinese CNS market. We recognize how important it is to promote our products in rapidly growing markets. This is D-Pharm's third licensing agreement with an Asian company. Importantly, the data generated by NHWA gives us the opportunity to accelerate global development of DP-VPA."

This partnership was facilitated by Xintech, a company that specializes in developing technological cooperation between China and Israel in the life sciences.