NEW YORK ─ Eysins, Switzerland-based Quotient said on Monday that it has inked a binding letter of intent with Raritan, New Jersey-based Ortho Clinical Diagnostics to terminate a former distribution agreement and related contracts and resolve all of their disputes over the former agreement.
The firms ended pending arbitration and inked a new distributor agreement focused on patient transfusion diagnostics, Quotient said.
Quotient added that under the new agreement, it will develop an immunohematology-based MosaiQ microarray optimized for the patient transfusion market and sell it along with instruments and consumables to Ortho Clinical for distribution in Europe and the US. The MosaiQ multiplex microarray platform is fully automated and allows for multiple tests across different modalities, Quotient said.
The firm added that it is entitled to $67.5 million in payments in addition to payments for the products it will supply to Ortho Clinical. Quotient said it received a first milestone payment of $7.5 million on Sept. 4 and that the remaining milestone payments are due upon the achievement of regulatory and commercial sales benchmarks.
Ortho Clinical has rights to distribute the immunohematology microarray for patient transfusion diagnostics in the European and US patient transfusion markets for 10 years. Ortho Clinical's rights are exclusive as long it satisfies certain minimum purchase requirements, Quotient said. Quotient retains rights to market, distribute, and sell the immunohematology-based microarray for use in testing blood donors.