Nestle signs $120 mln deal with Seres for "healthy gut" drugs

ZURICH, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Nestle is investing in U.S.-based
Seres Therapeutics for a third time in a year, this time
injecting $120 million to develop and commercialise medicines
aimed at restoring a healthy bacterialogical balance in the
human digestive system.
The deal announced on Monday for so-called "healthy gut"
products will give Nestle's Health Science division exclusive
rights to sell Seres' experimental treatments for Clostridium
difficile infection (CDI) and inflammatory bowel disease outside
the United States and Canada.
Nestle's payments to Seres from the products, which are in
development, could reach up to $1.9 billion after factoring in
royalty and milestone instalments over the next 15 years.
The investment furthers food giant Nestle's healthcare push
and could lead its five-year-old Health Science unit to lift
ambitions of annual sales to beyond the 10 billion Swiss francs
($10 billion) it previously projected, unit head Greg Behar
said.
"(It) really brings breakthrough solutions into our pipeline
in a field that's very much up and coming," Behar said. "It's a
new health frontier."
Behar said the drug would soon be going into clinical trial
in Europe and could be expected to reach the market in a couple
of years.
Other markets expected to be of significant value include
Japan, China, Russia and Brasil.
The Health Sciences unit, which formed in 2011, has revenue
of more than 2 billion francs, Nestle said in October. Behar is
targeting new products as well as expanding sales to more
countries to lift revenue.
This marks Nestle's third investment in Seres within 12
months. It invested $65 million last January in the Cambridge,
Massachusetts-based start-up and took an 18 percent stake in
when the company went public last summer.
Seres' treatments target disorders of the microbiome, the
100 trillion microorganisms living in the human gut, leading to
conditions such as ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease and CDI,
the potentially fatal cause of diarrhea and intestinal swelling.
This latest transaction includes two pipeline candidates for
treating clostridium difficile and two treating inflammatory
bowel disease, the first of which, SER 109, is currently in
phase 2 trials.
Delivered through a pill ingested twice daily, SER 109 has
been granted orphan drug and breakthrough therapy designations
by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for targeting multiple
recurrent clostridium difficile, according to Seres' release.
($1 = 0.9990 Swiss francs)