Everest Medicines Enters Exclusive Licensing Agreement with Travere Therapeutics

Ropes & Gray advised Shanghai, China-based Everest Medicines in an exclusive licensing and collaboration agreement for the development and commercialization of Brunton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, called civorebrutinib, an oral therapy designed to treat rare immune-mediated kidney diseases in a deal worth up to $1.14 billion. The transaction was announced on June 2.

Under the agreement, Everest will receive an upfront payment of $112.5 million in exchange for granting Travere exclusive development and commercialization rights for civorebrutinib in all markets outside of China and certain countries in East and Southeast Asia.  Everest is also eligible to receive up to approximately $1.03 billion in additional cash payments tied to specified clinical development, regulatory and commercial milestones across up to five disease indications. Travere will also pay tiered royalties on future sales in its licensed territories based on annual net sales thresholds.

The Ropes & Gray team was led by IP transactions partner Geoffrey Lin and life sciences partner Arthur Mok and included antitrust partners Zak Goodwin and Deidre Johnson and life sciences partner Katherine Wang.