Fintech Finance App learned that German company Bayer (BAYRY.US) reached a cooperation agreement with American biotechnology company Cytokinetics (CYTK.US) on Tuesday to obtain the exclusive development and commercialization rights of Cytokinetics' hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) therapy Aficamten in Japan, but must abide by certain development rights retained by Cytokinetics.

Bayer stated in a declaration that Cytokinetics will receive a prepayment of 50 million euros, and an additional 90 million euros in bonuses - depending on certain development achievements. Cytokinetics will also receive up to 0.49 billion euros from Bayer, the specific amount depending on certain sales milestones.

Information shows that Aficamten is a small molecule cardiac myosin inhibitor (CMI) independently developed by Cytokinetics. The drug improves the drug treatment index and pharmacokinetic characteristics through comprehensive chemical optimization, reducing the number of active myocardial force cross-bridges in each cardiac cycle, thereby inhibiting excessive myocardial contraction associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Despite currently bearing debt and facing the challenges of a sluggish agricultural market and expensive litigation costs, Bayer is under pressure from investors to strengthen its drug development channels. Therefore, Bayer is strengthening its cardiovascular business through smaller trades, with the cooperation with Cytokinetics being part of it.

In March of this year, Bayer acquired exclusive commercialization rights for Acoramidis in Europe from Eidos Therapeutics, BridgeBio International GmbH, and BridgeBio Europe B.V. for as much as 0.31 billion dollars. Acoramidis is an oral, potent, highly selective small molecule transthyretin protein (TTR) stabilizer used to treat transthyretin protein amyloidosis cardiomyopathy (ATTR CM).