Sarepta’s $852m Summit Collaboration Could Enable DMD Drug Combinations

Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. and Summit Therapeutics PLC entered into an $852m collaboration that could lead to one of the first combination therapy regimens for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) following US FDA approval of Sarepta’s Exondys 51 (eteplirsen), the first medicine ever approved to treat the rare, degenerative, neuromuscular disease.

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Sarepta paid $40m up front and committed up to $522m in development, regulatory and commercial milestone fees plus royalties for rights to Summit’s lead utrophin modulator ezutromid in Europe, Turkey and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS); the oral drug is under evaluation in a Phase II clinical trial