AnnJi Pharmaceutical Announced A Licensing Agreement With Avenue Therapeutics To Develop And Commercialize AJ201, A First-In-Class Clinical Asset For The Treatment Of Kennedy's Disease

TAIPEI, March 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- AnnJi Pharmaceutical Co. (AnnJi) has entered into an exclusive license agreement with Avenue Therapeutics Inc. (Avenue, NASDAQ: ATXI) for the development and commercialization of AJ201 in the U.S., Canada, European Union, Great Britain, and Israel for spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA), also known as Kennedy's Disease. Under the terms of the license agreement, AnnJi will receive upfront payments of $3 million and is entitled to receive future development, regulatory and commercialization milestone payments amounting up to 250 million USD, as well as up to 2-digit percentage royalty of the net sales. In addition, AnnJi will retain the manufacturing right to provide clinical and commercial supply of AJ201 to Avenue under agreed sale price and will be compensated for any Avenue's sublicense activity. Avenue will also issue 831,618 shares of its common stock to AnnJi in connection with the initial closing of the license transaction as an equity upfront and additional share upon achievement of a clinical milestone, aggregating in total to not more than 19.99% of Avenue's current total number of outstanding shares of common stock. This agreement is one of the largest license deals for a small molecule drug in early Phase 1b/2a clinical development in the past twenty-four months. Greenberg Traurig served as AnnJi's legal advisor in this transaction.