Cornerstone Therapeutics buys CardioKine for lixivaptan

Cornerstone Therapeutics Inc. (a specialty drug division of Chiesi Farmaceutici SPA) has acquired privately held cardiovascular therapeutics company CardioKine Inc. Under obligations of a 2004 alliance through which Cardiokine gained access to lixivaptan, Cornerstone will first pay Wyeth (now part of Pfizer Inc.) $20mm, then CardioKine’s shareholders. In addition to assuming up to $2mm of debt, Cornerstone will provide $1mm at closing, an undisclosed amount of cash on hand (less $2.7mm, which will be escrowed), and earn-outs of up to $156mm ($8.5mm upon approval of a pending NDA for lixivaptan that was filed at the end of December 2011 and another $147.5mm based on sales goals), plus either 8 or 12% of the net sales of the resulting product.