To this aim, the companies created a joint venture responsible for managing the Dispersome intellectual property portfolio and allocated market rights to the two partners.

Hovione and Zerion have been co-promoting the Dispersome technology to clients since the beginning of 2022. Under the extended collaboration, Hovione is granted exclusive global rights to develop and offer the Dispersome technology for drugs delivered via the respiratory route, a field where Hovione is active today with leading formulation and manufacturing capabilities. Further, Hovione is granted exclusive rights to develop and offer Dispersome formulations for nutraceutical and medicinal foods products, an area with unmet needs in the area of bioavailability. Hovione is also granted a non-exclusive license to promote the Dispersome technology for use in pharmaceutical oral dosage forms for new chemical entities.

In return for the grant of rights, Zerion will receive royalties from Hovione’s commercial activities in these fields.

Arla Foods Ingredients (Denmark) will deliver the pharmaceutical excipient (Lacprodan BLG-100 Pharma Grade), for the Dispersome technology, when BLG is accepted as a novel excipient.

“If one company in the pharma industry can truly judge its value, it is Hovione, and we have a strong belief in sharing our technology with Hovione, who will secure its use with more drugs and ingredients and in applications across several delivery routes. Thus, we expect substantial revenues from the collaboration in the years to come,” says Ole Wiborg, the CEO of Zerion.