Esperion Sues Daiichi Sankyo Over $300M Milestone Payment

Esperion is suing Daiichi Sankyo over a failure to pay a $300 million milestone payment for the cardiovascular drug Nexletol (bempedoic acid), a treatment for heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia or established atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

In 2019, Daiichi paid $150 million upfront for exclusive commercialization rights in Europe to Esperion’s bempedoic acid, which is used in Nexletol and Nexlizet.

Under the deal, Esperion would get $150 million after the first sales of the drug and would run the clinical trials. But Esperion argues that the positive results from a recent trial of Nexletol in 14,000 participants, reported in early March, also should have resulted in a $300 million payout.

The suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, alleges that the deal between the companies says that if the risk reduction in the Nexletol trial was 20 percent or better, Daiichi would pay Esperion $300 million.

In the lawsuit, Esperion says Daiichi has stated that it “will never be required to pay” Esperion a milestone payment because of the 13 percent risk reduction result achieved in the study.