Sometimes the best way to end a fight is to just agree to pay the other guy a cut of your sales. That seems to be the thinking behind the settlement that BioMarin Pharmaceutical (BMRN) and Ascendis Pharma (ASND) announced on Sunday, putting an end to their global patent battles over the drug Yuviwel.
Yuviwel, which is Ascendis's once-weekly injection for children with achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism, got FDA approval back in March. It's the first and only once-weekly treatment for these kids, designed to help them grow taller. But BioMarin, which has its own achondroplasia drug, wasn't about to let that go unchallenged. The two companies have been duking it out in courts and before the U.S. International Trade Commission, but now they've decided to bury the hatchet.
Here's the deal: Ascendis will pay BioMarin a 20% royalty on all net sales of Yuviwel in the U.S. And not just going forward. The royalty is retroactive, covering every sale since the drug first hit the market. Outside the U.S., Ascendis will pay an 18% royalty on net sales in the European Union, Brazil, and South Korea, and those payments will keep flowing until May 2030.
In exchange, Ascendis gets a full license to use BioMarin's patents related to Yuviwel. That license covers all current and potential medical uses, including hypochondroplasia and achondroplasia, and it even allows for combination therapies with other drugs. Both companies have agreed to drop all the pending lawsuits and IP claims in the Northern District of California, Germany, Denmark, South Korea, and Brazil. Clean slate.
For Ascendis, this settlement removes a big overhang. The company has been pretty bullish about its financial future, reiterating that it expects to generate more than 500 million euros in operating cash flow in 2026 and believes it can hit 5 billion euros in revenue by 2030. Yuviwel is still early in its commercial life, with second-quarter 2026 revenue of just 8 million euros, but the uptake is starting to show. More than 220 unique patients have been enrolled by over 100 prescribing healthcare providers, and more than 65% of those enrollments have been approved for reimbursement in the U.S. as of July 31, 2026.
The company is also pushing ahead with the regulatory process in Europe. The Marketing Authorization Application for Yuviwel is still under review by the European Medicines Agency, with a decision expected in the fourth quarter of 2026. And Ascendis plans to start a Phase 3 trial in the second half of the year to test TransCon CNP as a monotherapy for hypochondroplasia, another growth disorder.
Investors seemed to take the news in stride. In premarket trading on Monday, Ascendis shares were down a hair, 0.21%, to $247.40, while BioMarin shares were up 3.33% to $66.81. The market's reaction suggests this settlement was largely priced in, or at least that the terms are seen as reasonable for both sides.
For BioMarin, this is a nice little revenue stream without having to do much work. For Ascendis, it's the price of peace, and maybe a fair one, given that it gets to keep selling Yuviwel without the threat of an ITC ban or endless litigation. Sometimes the best deal is the one where everyone walks away with something.
