Bionomics has announced that it has granted a licence to Massachusetts-based Athena Diagnostics to market Bionomics’ childhood epilepsy diagnostic to neurologists in North America and Japan.
Athena, specialists in diagnostic testing for neurological disorders, plans to make the gene-based Severe Myoclonic Epilepsy of Infancy (SMEI) test available later this calendar year to over 5,000 neurologists for whom it currently performs diagnostic tests.
Until now there has been no genetic test available to clinicians to allow them to distinguish SMEI from less serious forms of epilepsy. Early diagnosis should reduce the cost associated with current diagnostic procedures for SMEI and will enable doctors to implement appropriate treatment strategies, which it is hoped will reduce the high (18%) mortality rate associated with SMEI. Around 240,000 children in the United States may be candidates for the SMEI test.
Under the terms of the licence agreement, Athena will pay Bionomics upfront fees on signing, milestone payments linked to sales targets and royalty payments on net sales. Further details of the license agreement are unable to be disclosed for commercial reasons however, Bionomics considered Athena’s reach into the neurology market to be important in realising the value of the Company’s SMEI intellectual property. Under the agreement, potentially substantial cash flows to Bionomics will be in the form of milestone payments and royalties on sales achieved by Athena.
Bionomics and its collaborators, including Associate Professor Ingrid Scheffer and Professor Samuel Berkovic, the leading clinicians for the 100 patient clinical study which validated the test, will provide support to Athena in the promotion of the test to neurologists. Athena has around 45 sales representatives in the United States alone.
Athena has also expressed interest in licensing other epilepsy tests that Bionomics may develop in the future.