EpiCept Corp., a privately held specialty pharmaceutical company with proprietary technology for the topical delivery of prescription medications for the treatment of pain, reported another successful development on December 18, 2003 with the signing of a license agreement with Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Endo Pharmaceuticals Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: ENDP). This license agreement grants Endo exclusive, worldwide rights to certain patents of EpiCept Corp. as well as exclusive, worldwide commercialization rights to EpiCept's LidoPAIN® BP product. The license agreement provides for Endo to make undisclosed milestone payments as well as royalty payments on the net sales of EpiCept's LidoPAIN® BP product to EpiCept. EpiCept has also retained an option to co-promote the LidoPAIN® BP product.
This transaction follows the July 2003 announcement of a collaboration with Adolor Corporation (Nasdaq: ADLR) where, under the terms of the agreement, EpiCept received a USD 2.5 million signing fee and is eligible to receive up to USD 20 million in additional developmental milestone payments, based on clinical and regulatory progress and reaching a certain sales level. The agreement provides for royalties on net sales.
Private Equity Holding AG is set to benefit from EpiCept's performance, both from its direct holding in the company and an indirect holding via a fund.
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"Portfolio News"
brings investment highlights from the portfolio of Private Equity Holding AG to the attention of investors. Contractual disclosure requirements limit the depth of information to publicly available data and thus prohibit disclosure of additional financials.
Private Equity Holding AG (SWX: PEHN), managed by Swiss Life Private Equity Partners, offers investors the opportunity to invest, within a simple legal and tax optimized structure, in a broadly diversified and professionally managed private equity portfolio. For further information: www.peh.ch or Tamara Krebs, Investor Relations and Communications (phone +41 41 726 79 80).