Royalty Pharma Partners with Aisling Capital and Clarus Ventures in Recent Ibrutinib Royalty Purchase

NEW YORK, Aug. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Royalty Pharma announced today that, pursuant to a collaboration with Aisling Capital and Clarus Ventures, it has sold to Aisling and Clarus approximately 20% of the royalty interest in ibrutinib it recently acquired from Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX) for a pro rata percentage of the $485 million Royalty Pharma paid to Quest for the royalty.  

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"The Clarus and Aisling teams' expertise in early-stage and development-stage companies and therapies added real value during the course of our collective consideration of this opportunity.  We greatly enjoyed working with Aisling and Clarus and look forward to future potential joint opportunities in which we can pool our resources and expertise," said Pablo Legorreta, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Royalty Pharma. "The ibrutinib transaction marks Royalty Pharma's third pre-FDA approval investment in 18 months. We see many other quality pre-approval products where Royalty Pharma could provide liquidity to drug developers by pulling forward future revenues. Such high-quality pre-approval investment opportunities are an excellent complement to Royalty Pharma's core business of acquiring royalty assets on approved drugs," added Mr. Legorreta.

"This collaboration brought together the capabilities of each firm in an extremely effective manner," noted Dennis Purcell, Senior Managing Director at Aisling Capital. 

"Ibrutinib is an important advance in the treatment of multiple B-cell malignancies," added Nick Simon, Managing Director at Clarus Ventures.  "We are excited to be part of the story."

Pharmacyclics (NASDAQ: PCYC) and Janssen Pharmaceutical's (NYSE: JNJ) ibrutinib was filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July 2013 for relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma and relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia after receiving Breakthrough Therapy Designation from FDA earlier this year.  Ibrutinib has received three of the eight Breakthrough Therapy Designations granted by the FDA to date in oncology.

About Royalty Pharma

Royalty Pharma is the industry leader in acquiring royalty interests in marketed and late stage biopharmaceutical products. With over $10 billion in assets, Royalty Pharma owns royalty interests in 41 marketed and late stage biopharmaceutical products, including Abbott's Humira®, Johnson and Johnson's Remicade® and Prezista®, Gilead's Atripla®, Truvada®, Complera® and Emtriva®, Pfizer's Lyrica®, Amgen's Neupogen® and Neulasta®, Genentech's Rituxan®, Astella's Lexiscan®, Merck's Januvia/Janumet®, Roche's Mircera®, UCB's Cimzia®, Biogen Idec's Tecfidera® and Pharmacyclics' ibrutinib. Additional company information is available at www.royaltypharma.com.

About Clarus Ventures

Clarus Ventures is a life sciences venture capital firm founded by a team of accomplished investment and operating professionals. The investment team has extensive and broad backgrounds in research and development, commercialization, business development and operations management, which enabled Clarus to establish a long history of success in creating value across multiple disciplines within the healthcare-investing universe. The deep domain expertise of the Clarus team allows us to employ a hands-on philosophy of providing value enhanced leadership and guidance in working with our management teams in both the biopharmaceutical and medical device arenas. Clarus is presently managing $1.2 billion. The firm invests globally out of its offices in Cambridge, MA and South San Francisco, CA. www.clarusventures.com

About Aisling Capital

Aisling Capital is a life sciences-dedicated venture capital firm with over US$1.6 billion under management.  The firm invests in companies developing pharmaceutical and medical products, as well as in businesses that provide drug development, manufacturing and other important services to the healthcare industry.  Headquartered in New York, Aisling invests in both private and public companies utilizing a wide variety of investment structures. The Aisling Capital team's combination of clinical, operational, transactional and capital markets experience allows the firm to identify, execute and realize investments across the life sciences industry. www.aislingcapital.com

For Royalty Pharma: 
Alexander v. Perfall (investors and media) at 212-883-2298
George Lloyd (royalty holders) at 212-883-2275

SOURCE Royalty Pharma