Sequella TB Drug Deal Blurs The Line Between Licensing And Financing

For a small biotech seeking to out-license a promising asset in a far-flung territory, established pharmas typically make the best partners, given these big players have the infrastructure required to gain regulatory approval for a compound and bring it to market. But for Sequella Inc., a Rockville, MD-based infectious disease specialist, the commercial path of its tuberculosis drug in Russia and other former Soviet republics goes through a partner that will likely never sell the drug itself.

In a non-traditional deal, Sequella licensed its Phase II TB drug SQ109 to Maxwell Biotech Venture Fund, a government-sponsored investment...