Eisai Europe, the Tokyo-based subsidiary of Eisai, has entered into an agreement with PharmaSwiss, the Switzerland-based division of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, to promote and distribute the Eisai's novel anticancer agent Halaven (eribulin mesylate) in a number of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries.

PharmaSwiss, as one of the largest distributors in CEE, will promote and distribute Halaven in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovenia. The company will also offer Eisai regional expertise in such functions as regulatory, compliance, sales, marketing and distribution. The partnership will enable Eisai to deliver Halaven much faster to patients in CEE countries in which the company has not established locally based sales offices.

Halaven is the first single-agent chemotherapy to demonstrate a statistically significant overall survival benefit in patients with pretreated metastatic breast cancer. The agent was approved by the European Commission in March 2011 for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer whose disease has progressed after at least two chemotherapeutic regimens for advanced disease, including an anthracycline and a taxane, and is now available in 11 European countries.

Eisai is committed to increasing access to its medicines through the implementation of various new partnership-based business models to improve affordability, availability and adoption, and to making contributions to increase the benefits provided to an even greater number of patients and families worldwide.