Forest purchases rights to azimilide

NEW YORK — Drug maker Forest Labs has acquired worldwide rights to a drug developed by Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals for treating arrhythmia.

Forest said Tuesday that it had purchased the rights to azimilide from Blue Ash Therapeutics and had been assigned a license agreement between Blue Ash and Warner Chilcott. Forest will assume responsibility for all future development and commercialization, including costs. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We are pleased to have acquired the worldwide rights to azimilide,” Forest president and CEO Howard Solomon said. “Azimilide is a well-studied drug [that] has been reviewed in the past by the [Food and Drug Administration] as an anti-arrhythmic treatment for patients with a history of life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias and who have an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, a group for which there are currently no approved anti-arrhythmics.”