Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Acquires Rights For Apaziquone In The U.S., Europe And Other Territories From Allergan; Expects To File New Drug Application

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals (NasdaqGS: SPPI), a biotechnology company with fully integrated commercial and drug development operations with a primary focus in hematology and oncology, today announced the Company has reacquired development and commercialization rights for apaziquone in the United States, Europe and other territories pursuant to an agreed-upon restructuring of Spectrum’s collaboration with Allergan, Inc. In exchange, Allergan will receive a royalty on future revenue. Apaziquone is an anticancer agent being developed for the treatment of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NIMBC) as a single instillation following transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT).

Spectrum also announced that a scheduled meeting with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) was held last month to discuss the results from the Company’s Phase 3 clinical trials. Based on the discussions with the FDA, Spectrum understands that the FDA can accept the NDA filing with the current Phase III data and will likely convene an Advisory Committee meeting. Further, based on discussions with the FDA, Spectrum has agreed to conduct one additional Phase III study following consultation with the FDA on its design.

“Regaining apaziquone rights will enable Spectrum to take the steps we believe are essential to advancing apaziquone toward commercialization in the U.S., Europe and other key territories,” stated Rajesh C. Shrotriya, M.D., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. “Spectrum is committed to expediting our program for apaziquone, with the goal of accelerating potential registration and integrating apaziquone into our plan to expand our footprint in the U.S. and build our presence in the EU. Spectrum is grateful to the FDA for its thoughtful feedback on the apaziquone clinical program. We believe there continues to be a significant unmet need as no drugs have been approved and marketed in the U.S. for more than 20 years for low-grade NMIBC.”

Apaziquone is an anticancer drug that requires activation by bio-reductive enzymes that are over-expressed in bladder cancer cells, to render it a cytotoxic alkylating agent. Spectrum conducted two multi-center, international Phase 3 trials of a single dose of intravesical instillation of apaziquone into the bladder in the immediate post-operative period after surgical resection of low-grade, non-muscle invasive bladder tumors. In April 2012, Spectrum announced that the Phase 3 trials did not meet their primary endpoint of a statistically significant difference in the rate of tumor recurrence at 2 years between treatment and placebo arms. However, analysis of the pooled data from both studies showed a statistically significant treatment effect in favor of apaziquone in the primary endpoint of the rate of tumor recurrence at 2 years (p-value = 0.0174) and in a key secondary endpoint, time to recurrence (p-value = 0.0076).

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