On January 21, 2020, as amended on June 4, 2020, the Company entered into a sublicense agreement (the “Sublicense Agreement”) with Apexian, pursuant to which it obtained exclusive worldwide patent and other intellectual property rights that constitute a Ref-1 Inhibitor program relating to therapeutic applications to treat disorders related to ophthalmic and diabetes mellitus conditions. The lead compound in the Ref-1 Inhibitor program is APX3330, which the Company intends to develop as an oral pill therapeutic to treat diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema initially, and potentially later to treat wet age-related macular degeneration.

 

The Company agreed to make one-time milestone payments under the Sublicense Agreement for each of the first ophthalmic indication and the first diabetes mellitus indication for the Development and Regulatory milestones, and once for each of the Sales milestones. These milestone payments include (i) payments for specified developmental and regulatory milestones (including completion of the first Phase 2 trial that meets a primary endpoint and the first Phase 3 pivotal trial in the United States, and filing and achieving regulatory approval from the FDA for the first New Drug Application for a compound) totaling up to $11 million in the aggregate and (ii) payments for specified sales milestones of up to $20 million in the aggregate, which net sales milestone payments are payable once, upon the first achievement of such milestone. Lastly, the Company also agreed to make a royalty payment equal to a single-digit percentage of its net sales of products associated with the covered patents under the Sublicense Agreement. If it is not terminated pursuant to its terms, the Sublicense Agreement shall remain in effect until expiration of the last to expire of the covered patents.

 

None of the milestone or royalty payments, were triggered or deemed probable as of December 31, 2022.