Otsuka Pharmaceutical has expanded its global collaboration agreement with Proteus Digital Health for advancing a portfolio of digital medicines and care models to help patients with severe mental illness.
Under the renewed alliance, the partners will further develop and commercialise digital medicines over the next five years.
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The new agreement includes the Abilify Mycite drug-device combination product that secured the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the treatment of multiple mental disorders.
As part of the partnership, Otsuka made $88m in related equity and additional payments to Proteus.
Otsuka North America Pharmaceutical business division president and CEO Kabir Nath said: “We are pleased to continue to focus on opportunities to further integrate digital medicines into healthcare eco-systems to provide value-added outcomes for patients suffering from unmet medical needs in the mental health field.
“Our expanding collaboration with Proteus is a cornerstone of this strategy, and further enables us to serve the mental health community by developing additional innovative technology solutions.”
Otsuka and Proteus employees will jointly work towards commercial development and market coordination for the Abilify Mycite System.
The team will also focus on software integration and standardisation, manufacturing and supply chain integration, and coordination.
Also, the partners will develop an expanded portfolio of other digital medicines, including atypical antipsychotics embedded with Proteus sensors.
Furthermore, they will devise next-generation product features and sensor capabilities aimed at expanding the potential of digital medicine offerings.
Proteus Digital Health president and CEO Andrew Thompson said: “This commitment to a broad, inter-operable platform is the core reason for us to expand our collaboration with Otsuka in mental health.
“This expanded collaboration is a great opportunity to bring novel digital medicine solutions to mental health patients.”
In April this year, Proteus announced the development of a pipeline of 31 digital medicines called DigiMeds.
The company formulated 15 DigiMeds for cardiovascular and metabolic conditions, seven for infectious diseases and additional products for cancer.
