Lesinurad

Dive Brief:Swedish pharmaceutical company Sobi has reached a deal to acquire Arthrosi Therapeutics, a biotechnology startup developing a medicine for gout, in a deal worth as much as $1.45 billion.Sobi said on Saturday that it will pay $950 million in upfront cash, or about 9.1 billion Swedish kronor, for Arthrosi. It could add another $550 million to the deal if Arthrosis top drug candidate, named pozdeutinurad or AR882, hits a variety of clinical, regulatory and sales-based milestones. The buyout will be funded by new and existing debt facilities and should close in the first half of 2026.Arthrosi is developing pozdeutinurad for progressive and severe, chronic forms of gout, a form of arthritis caused by a harmful accumulation of uric acid in the body. Two Phase 3 trials are fully enrolled, with results expected in the second quarter of 2026. In a statement, Sobi president and CEO Guido Oelkers said Arthrosis drug could become the therapy of choice for people whose symptoms persist despite initial therapy.Dive Insight:Gout is believed to affect about 56 million people around the world and is best known for the sudden flare-ups of joint pain, or gout attacks, it causes.For decades, patients with the disease have initially relied on a drug called allopurinol to lower the levels of uric acid in their bodies and alleviate symptoms. But allopurinol doesnt help everyone, and there are few options behind it, such as an infusible drug called Krystexxa and currently sold by Amgen.Arthrosi is one of several companies hoping to show that newer so-called URAT1 inhibitors will prove to be powerful alternatives. URAT1 is a transporter protein that regulates uric acid levels, making it a popular target for gout medicines. But an earlier URAT1 inhibitor called Zurampic and sold by AstraZeneca, was linked to kidney damage and pulled from the market four years after its 2015 approval.By comparison, newer URAT1 inhibitors are supposed to be more specific to their targets and sidestep some of those safety issues. Arthrosi, for example, has described pozdeutinurad as a highly potent and selective next generation URAT1 inhibitor with the chance to become best-in-class. Dotinurad, a drug thats marketed in multiple Asian countries and is partly owned by startup Crystalys Therapeutics, was designed to better protect the kidneys. Multiple China-based drug companies have newer URAT1 inhibitors in testing as well.Sobi already has one treatment for uncontrolled gout thats currently a pair of late-stage studies. Arthrosis drug allows us to expand our gout pipeline with a highly differentiated new asset, Oelkers said, adding that pozdeutinurad could materially accelerate the companys growth until the mid 2030s and beyond.Arthrosi was formed in 2018 and is backed by Prime Eight Capital, CR Biotech, HighLight Capital and a handful of other investors. It raised a $153 million Series E round in October.Guangzhou, China-based ApicHope Pharmaceutical holds rights to pozdeutinurad in Greater China through a longstanding agreement with Arthrosi. '

Prime Eight Capital led Arthrosi Therapeutics\' series E round with support from CR Biotech, HighLight Capital, HM Venture Partners, ReliantTech and existing shareholders.\n Arthrosi Therapeutics has raised $153 million to bankroll its bid to clout gout. The series E financing gives the biotech the financial firepower to deliver data from two phase 3 trials next year.San Diego-based Arthrosi completed enrollment in a pair of phase 3 gout trials earlier this year. After wrapping up enrollment in the second study in August, the biotech sketched out a timeline that takes in two data drops in 2026 on the way to a filing for approval of pozdeutinurad. Two years after raising a $75 million series D round, Arthrosi now has the money to execute the next steps in its late-phase strategy.Arthrosi is aiming to report its first pivotal data on pozdeutinurad in the second quarter of next year. The drug candidate is an inhibitor of URAT1, a transporter that has been a target for gout drugs going back to the approval of probenecid in 1951.Probenecid and other early gout drugs hit multiple targets and caused a range of side effects. Seeking to avoid the adverse events, developers of subsequent waves of gout drugs tried to create more potent and specific URAT1 inhibitors. AstraZeneca acquired a URAT1 inhibitor in its $1.3 billion takeover of Ardea Biosciences in 2012 and won FDA approval for the drug in 2015. By 2018, the product, Zurampic, had landed on the scrap heap.   The commercial struggles of Zurampic, which carried a boxed warning, didn\'t deter others from trying to launch URAT1 inhibitors. A team behind Zurampic has reformed at Crystalys Therapeutics to advance dotinurad, a URAT1 inhibitor that is approved in Asian markets including Japan. And China’s Atom Therapeutic recently reported a phase 2b/3 win for its own URAT1 inhibitor, lingdolinurad.  Amid the continued interest in URAT1, a syndicate of investors has bet that Arthrosi can carve out a piece of the market. Prime Eight Capital led the series E round with support from CR Biotech, HighLight Capital, HM Venture Partners, ReliantTech and existing shareholders, according to Arthrosi\'s Oct. 8 release.