Sequella, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company focused on commercializing antibiotics to treat life-threatening infectious diseases, and Maxwell Biotech Venture Fund have agreed to complete the clinical development and commercialization of SQ109 for treatment of tuberculosis (TB) in the Russian Federation and neighboring Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine, according to Fierce Biotech.

The license includes an equity investment, clinical trial supply purchase, milestones, and royalty payments that, with successful development and commercialization, could be worth up to $50 million to Sequella.

"We are delighted to be working with such an internationally respected partner as Maxwell Biotech Venture Fund for our first licensing deal for SQ109," said Dr. Carol Nacy, CEO of Sequella. "With TB, and particularly multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB, increasing at alarming rates in Russia and the CIS, the value of a successful new drug for TB can be measured not only monetarily, but in patient lives. This is a great day for the TB patients in that territory and the TB community in general."