Science in the Triangle

Cornerstone Therapeutics, a Cary company that specializes in respiratory therapies, has offered to pay $5 million for the commercial rights to Factive, a respiratory anitbiotic that generated $16 million in sales last year.

The offer was announced Monday, the same day Oscient Pharmaceuticals, the Massachusetts company that owns the rights to Factive, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The bankruptcy court still has to approve the deal following an auction in which Oscient will seek competing bids.

Factive has been on the market since September 2004 and is approved to treat certain types of chronic bronchitis and pneumonia. It would add another drug to Cornerstone’s expanding product line.

Cornerstone projected more than $80 million in revenue this year, an estimated 15 percent increase from last year. The growth is largely based on key deals Cornerstone has made in the past year.

In October 2008, the company bought publicly traded Critical Therapeutics, a Boston biotech company, for an estimated $58 million. The merger allowed Cornerstone access to capital markets in what is known as a reverse initial public offering and added Chritical Therapeutic’s asthma drug Zyflo to Cornerstone’s product line.

In May, Italian drugmaker Chiesi Farmaceutici stepped forward to buy a 51 percent stake in Cornerstone in a stock-cash deal worth about $70 million. Cornerstone would get $15.5 million in cash and the rights to sell Curosurf, a Chiesi treatment approved for respiratory distress syndrome in premature infants. Last year, Curosurf generated about $30 million in U.S. sales.

As part of the deal with Chiesi, which is expected to be completed in the third quarter, Cornerstone would also have first dibs on any other new products the Italian partner wants to market in the U.S.

Cornerstone’s shares were up about 7 percent, or 50 cents, in midday trading Tuesday, the day after the deal with Oscient was announced. The stock has nearly doubled since the reverse IPO last fall.