Basilea Pharmaceutica, a spin-off from Switzerland pharmaceutical company Roche, has sold eczema drug Toctino to Stiefel, part of GlaxoSmithKline for £146m ($228.4m) upfront payments and up to £50m in milestone payments.
Basilea was founded in 2000 as a spin from Swiss pharmaceutical group Roche and it went public on the SIX Swiss Exchange in 2004.
According to news provider Bloomberg, Roche retained a stake in Basilea after it spun-off from the company. Bloomberg quoted , Basilea’s chief financial officer Ron Scott, as saying in 2010: "Roche was very smart in the way it established Basile. Roche was able to recoup its significant investment in therapeutic areas, which were no longer its primary focus."