Nektar reaps $124M from sale of Cimzia, Mircera royalties

Nektar Therapeutics Inc. scored $124 million by selling potential royalty revenue from two drugs marketed by Roche and UCB Pharma.
The San Francisco-based drug developer (NASDAQ: NKTR) said it sold to RPI Finance Trust all of its royalty rights from Jan. 1 onward for the Crohn’s Disease and rheumatoid arthritis drug Cimzia, marketed by UCB Pharma, and for the anemia drug Mircera, sold by F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.
Nektar must pay RPI, a unit of New York-based Royalty Pharma, $3 million if worldwide net sales of Mircera don’t reach undisclosed thresholds in 2012 and up to $7 million if sales don’t hit certain levels for 2012 and 2013.