vTv Therapeutics (Nasdaq: VTVT) shares thwarted in the after-market hours to -37.71% to $1.85 after the company revealed that it had signed a worldwide license agreement with Anteris Bio for the world’s first clinical-stage Nrf2 activator compound, HPP971. The biotech investment firm Aditum Bio, co-founded in 2019 by former Novartis executives Joe Jimenez and Dr. Mark Fishman, will focus on developing HPP971 as a new treatment for renal diseases.
HPP971 comes from the company’s portfolio of promising Nrf2 compounds that offer a well-established oral, small-molecule activator of the Nrf2 pathway. Phase 1 studies involving HPP971 have been completed two times to date. In exchange for worldwide development and commercialization rights for the compound, Anteris will pay vTv an upfront payment of $2 million, and vTv may collect milestones worth up to $151 million, in addition to royalties on net sales at a low double-digit rate. Additionally, vTv will be given a minority equity stake in Anteris Bio.
