Epizyme Receives Milestone From Glaxo For Lymphoma Drug

Epizyme, Inc. (NASDAQ:EPZM) announced that the company has earned a milestone payment worth $6 million from GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) .

The payment was triggered by Glaxo’s initiation of a phase I study on GSK3326595 (formerly EPZ015938). The company initiated a phase I dose-escalation study to investigate the safety, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and clinical activity of GSK3326595 in patients with solid tumors and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Epizyme had licensed the candidate to Glaxo. Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, Epizyme granted exclusive worldwide license rights to Glaxo to methyltransferase inhibitors directed at three targets.

While Epizyme was primarily responsible for pre-clinical research, Glaxo is responsible for subsequent research, development and commercialization of the three programs. Epizyme discovered and optimized compounds targeting three methyltransferases, including PRMT5 but Glaxo holds worldwide rights to all three programs. Among these, GSK3326595 is the first to enter the clinical stage.

To date, Epizyme has earned $59 million in up-front, research, and milestone payments. The company is entitled to receive up to an additional $617 million from Glaxo on the achievement of all milestones for all the three programs.

Moreover, Epizyme is eligible to receive up to double-digit royalties on worldwide net sales of the collaboration products.

With no approved product in its kitty as of yet, Epizyme is highly dependent on its collaboration partners for top-line growth. The company’s pipeline is still early stage and several years from commercialization.

Epizyme currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the healthcare sector include Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:LGND) and Pacira Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:PCRX) . Both these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Confidential from Zacks

Beyond this Analyst Blog, would you like to see Zacks' best recommendations that are not available to the public? Our Executive VP, Steve Reitmeister, knows when key trades are about to be triggered and which of our experts has the hottest hand. Click to see them now>>