Finnish company sells US licence for drug claimed to reduce obsessive behaviour

Manufacturers say nalmefene could help compulsive shoppers

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If the plans of the Turku-based company Biotie Therapies and the Californian Somaxon Pharmaceuticals work out, Americans could soon have access to a new medicine that is claimed to work against different types of compulsive behaviour, such as alcoholism, compulsive gambling, pyromania, shoplifting, and even compulsive shopping.
      Biotie announced on Friday that it had reached a licence agreement with Somaxon.
     
Under the agreement, Somaxon, which markets medicines, will get exclusive North American rights to develop, manufacture, and market the products of Biotie containing nalmefene. Biotie will keep exclusive rights to the European and Japanese markets.
      Somaxon’s CEO Kenneth M. Cohen said on Friday that the preparation should reach the US market in 2008 or 2009.
     
Somaxon first hopes to develop nalmefene for use in the treatment of compulsive gambling in North America. The company estimates that as many as three million people in North America suffer from severe compulsive gambling, and an additional seven million have serious gambling problems.
      Biotie CEO Jari Saarinen estimates that the agreement could be worth up to EUR 10.2 million. It is the second-largest contract in the company’s history.
      Biotie would also be entitled to residuals if Somaxon develops new versions of the drug to treat other types of compulsive disorders.
      Such disorders could include compulsive shopping, even though it is not yet classified as a disease. Compulsive gambling was classified as a disease already in the 1980s.
      The idea would be for a person suffering from compulsive behaviour to take a dose of the medicine before going to a party, or possibly before going to a shopping mall.
      Biotie’s studies indicate that nalmefene blocks receptors which affect the pleasure centres of the brain.
      The hope is that blocking the feeling of pleasure derived from gambling and shopping would keep such behaviour from going out of control.
     
News of the agreement between Biotie and Somaxon was leaked to the public on Wednesday of last week. Biotie’s head of development Kai Lähdesmäki said on Friday that a Somaxon employee had accidentally sent a press release to the Reuters News Agency.
      Biotie immediately sent the Helsinki Stock Exchange a statement denying the existence of a licence agreement. On Friday it came out that the agreement was not signed on Wednesday because one document was missing.
     
Investors clearly saw the news of the agreement as significant, because Biotie’s share price bounced up by more than ten percent on Friday morning.
      However, by the end of the day, the stock's price had eased, closing about 6% higher than the previous day.


Links:
  Biotie website

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