Pfenex Inc. has earned a $15 million development milestone under its development and license agreement with Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc. The milestone is associated with process development activities for PF745, a long-acting Erwinia asparaginase.

Under the agreement, Pfenex is eligible to receive a total of as much as $224.5 million in development and sales milestones. Pfenex is still eligible to receive $162.5 million, including up to $3.5 million for development milestones, $34 million in regulatory milestones and $125 million in sales milestones. Pfenex may also be eligible to receive royalties on sales of any products resulting from the collaboration.

“We are very pleased with the rapid progression of the PF745 program and we believe the Jazz collaboration, overall, further validates the versatility of our proprietary protein expression platform and the quality of our development capabilities,” said Eef Schimmelpennink, chief executive officer of Pfenex. “Additionally, we are excited about Jazz’s recent announcement that the lead product in our partnership, PF743 (JZP-458), is expected to begin recruiting patients into the pivotal Phase 2/3 clinical study as early as this month.”