Windgap Medical, Inc. announced today that it has a strategic partnership with ALK-Abelló, A/S (“ALK”) to commercialize the company’s epinephrine autoinjector (EAI) for the treatment of anaphylactic shock. Under its agreement with Windgap, ALK has exclusive, worldwide sales and distribution rights for the Windgap EAI in exchange for up-front, technical, and sales milestone payments along with tiered royalties on net sales in the USA, along with a split of net profit for products sold outside of the USA.
EAIs are used for the emergency treatment of acute allergic reactions – also known as anaphylaxis – which can be triggered by exposure to certain foods, or by exposure to venom from bee or wasp stings. There are more than 200,000 cases of anaphylaxis each year in the USA, and a study by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America estimated that up to 16 million Americans will experience it during their lifetime. Windgap estimates that the EAI market in the USA exceeds USD 1 billion annually, with a large unmet need that may enable significant market growth.
Windgap and its manufacturing collaborators are commercializing its ANDIPen® wet/dry autoinjector platform. The first product using this platform will be epinephrine for the treatment of anaphylaxis. The EAI is designed to address many unmet patient needs like portability, temperature stability, ease-of-use, and a long shelf-life.
“Windgap is excited to be working with ALK, a world-leader in the treatment of allergy with a strong understanding of the world-wide EAI market, to help commercialize our product. Our teams are working well in partnership to support that effort,” said Chris Stepanian, Windgap’s CEO and co-founder.
“Windgap has worked hard to assemble a world-class team to commercialize our epinephrine autoinjector. I believe the global market to be sizable and significantly under addressed. In addition to our partnership with ALK, we have strong support through a strategic investment by Molex Ventures. Molex represents one of our major manufacturing collaborators who is investing along-side our Series B lead investor Shepherd Kaplan Krochuk.”
