Pharmaceuticals group Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH yesterday disclosed its $515-million structured buyout deal to acquire  privately owned respiratory disease start-up biopharmaceutical Actimis Pharmaceuticals, based in San Diego.

The acquisition marks the 120-year old Boehringer's maiden entry in to biotechnologies. Owned by the Boehringer and von Baumbach families, the pharmaceuticals firm is the latest pharmaceutical firm to acquire promising American biotechnology companies to improve its new drugs pipeline. For instance, this year Swiss drug maker Roche Holding AG is acquiring the UK-based biotech Piramed Ltd for $175 million, Pfizer is acquiring privately held biotechnology company Serenex Inc, Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. is taking over Millennium Pharmaceuticals Incfor $8.8 billion and GlaxoSmithKline plc is acquirng Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc for $720 million. (See: Pfizer to acquire Serenex, extend oncology pipeline / Japan's Takeda to acquire Millennium Pharma for $8.8 billion / GlaxoSmithKline acquires Sirtris Pharmaceuticals)

Further financial details were not disclosed Boehringer said it would acquire Actimis's shares depending on the achievement of several successive milestones with Actimis' leading asthma compound AP768. If AP768, currently in phase I clinical development, is successfully advanced into phase III, Boehringer Ingelheim will own 100 per cent  of Actimis' shares. Upon successful completion of the entire development programme, the total deal will be worth $515 million.

Actimis focuses on the development of small molecule therapeutics for respiratory and inflammatory disorders. It was created as a spin-off from the respiratory diseases therapeutic research portfolio of Bayer Healthcare AG. The spin-off was founded by Dr. Kevin Bacon and has received venture financing from a syndicate lead by Sanderling Ventures of San Mateo, California and Mitsui & Co Venture Partners of New York. Dr. Bacon was most recently vice president and global head of respiratory diseases research at Bayer Yakuhin Ltd., Japan where the programmes were initiated.

The compound AP768 interacts with CRTH2, a novel target for asthma and allergic rhinitis. Previous to the currently ongoing phase I clinical trial, the compound has been shown to have a more effective mechanism of action across multiple available animal models compared to currently marketed leukotriene receptor antagonists. (CRTH2 = chemo-attractant receptor-homologous molecule expressed on TH2 mice cells.)

''Actimis's compound provides an innovative addition to Boehringer Ingelheim's portfolio of development candidates for the potential treatment of respiratory diseases'', said Dr. Andreas Barner, vice-chairman of the board corporate division pharma research, development and medicine at Boehringer Ingelheim. ''For many decades Boehringer Ingelheim has been advancing research and development in the respiratory area with new medicines, such as Spiriva, which has significantly improved the treatment of COPD patients.''

''Actimis and its investors are delighted with the highly innovative structure of this transaction with Boehringer Ingelheim'' says Dr. Peter McWilliams, president and acting CEO of Actimis. ''The scientific team at Actimis, under the leadership of founder, Dr. Kevin Bacon, have done a great job in bringing the program into the clinic and we are excited to have consummated an agreement with a company possessing the expertise and capabilities of Boehringer Ingelheim and are convinced they will do a superb job in taking the compound through the critical and demanding further steps in development.''

The Boehringer Ingelheim group is one of the world's 20 leading pharmaceutical companies. Headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, it operates globally with 135 affiliates in 47 countries and 39,800 employees. Since it was founded in 1885, the family-owned company has been committed to researching, developing, manufacturing and marketing novel products of high therapeutic value for human and veterinary medicine. In 2007, Boehringer Ingelheim posted net sales of 10.9 billion euro while spending one fifth of net sales in its largest business segment Prescription Medicines on research and development.

Actimis is a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused exclusively on the research and development of small molecule therapeutics for severe respiratory, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as asthma, inflammatory dermatoses, inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Actimis was spun off from Bayer Healthcare AG in November 2004.

Investors include Sanderling Ventures and Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners.