Biotechnology company Arecor Therapeutics PLC (AIM:AREC) expects its Arestat portfolio of pharmaceutical technologies to begin delivering more revenue from 2024 as partnerships with pharma groups hit their stride.
Arecor chief executive Sarah Howell said she expects the Arestat portfolio to generate more revenue in the form of royalties in 2024 through to 2026, after a milestone payment was triggered last month.
Arecor can add significant value by enhancing the concentration and speed at which existing drugs are administered, due to its technology platform, according to Howell in an interview with Proactiveinvestors..
"We partner with major pharmaceutical companies,” said Howell. “This is where they come to us. And they've got a problem or they want to improve their products. And in some way they try to do it themselves and have not been able to. That's where they're looking for access to our expertise and technology.”
Arecor is perennially involved in discussions with pharma groups over licensing its suite of performance-enhancing technology, with relationships in place with 12 technology partners, and further talks ongoing, Howell said.
One of the company’s pharma partners has already launched the AT220 product in Europe, described as an unnamed ‘biosimilar’ pharmaceutical that Howell said “will now generate recurring royalty payments” for the listed biotech company in a “multi-billion-dollar" market.
“The aim of biosimilars is to lower the cost to healthcare systems and improve access,” she said.
Howell explained that Arecor is “focused on transforming patient care by delivering enhanced product profiles that are otherwise unachievable.”
It has an IP portfolio of more than 75 granted patents, protecting its products, and uses an in-house algorithm to help “select the exact ratios of all these different ingredients” that will effectively enhance an existing drug, she added.
Arecor has licenced a speciality hospital product with Hikma Pharmaceuticals under a royalty-bearing agreement and also has an agreement with Inhibrx in the US, either one of which could yield results over the next year.
Hikma has met with the US Food and Drug Administration, confirming it can follow a “very abbreviated regulatory and development pathway to market”, according to Howell, who cited the 505 B2 regulatory pathway in the US.
“We anticipate that coming to market in 2026, and that’s under, again, a royalty bearing agreement,” she said of the Hikma partnership for Arecor drug product AT307.
Meanwhile, California-based biotech company Inhibrx is focused on orphan drugs, defined as those where the commercial market is underdeveloped, with a product that incorporates Arestat technology.
Howell said the company is expected to finish studies at the end of next year and an initial decision is expected on that drug next year.
“Precommercial licence milestones will be met before then. There’s a revenue stream and build there,” said Howell.
“Within this timeframe between now and 2026, there's opportunity for all three of those products to be on market and generating recurring commercial revenue streams to us.”
She said they are talking with other partners and are “confident that will be entering into more” licensing deals into next year.
“We definitely expect to, through 2024, to be an entering into new technology partnerships,” said Howell.
“I think with our speciality hospital portfolio, you can really see the opportunity to have multiple products on the market, all generating royalty streams, and that can start to return, significant royalty revenue.”