Apricus Biosciences has sold its specialty CRO subsidiary, Bio-Quant, Inc., to BioTox Sciences, a San Diego-based CRO. Apricus will receive a minimum of $5 million in upfront and future payments of as much as $20 million during the next 10 years. Apricus has also retained all NexMed-related research conducted by Bio-Quant and Bio-Quant’s diagnostic kit business.

“While our Bio-Quant subsidiary has been driving revenues over the past year, this divesture represents a key strategic decision for Apricus Bio,” said Dr. Bassam Damaj, Apricus’ chairman, president and chief executive officer. “The sale enables us to focus our efforts where we believe we will generate the greatest return on investment, speeding our specialty biopharmaceutical drugs to market.” Apricus Bio’s priority is to commercialize ED treatment Vitaros and to focus on developing and commercializing the 12 products and candidates in its pipeline.

“We were actively looking for opportunities to expand our footprint in the Discovery CRO area and add more In-Vitro and In-Vivo disease models to increase the range of services we currently offer to our clients,” said BioTox’s president, Sami Abunadi. Bio-Quant, founded in 2001, is a CRO for non-GLP contract drug discovery and preclinical development services, specializing in oncology, inflammation, immunology and metabolic diseases.