License Agreements

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2011

License Agreements [Abstract]

License Agreements

6. License Agreements

     As part of its business, the Company enters into licensing agreements, which often require milestone and royalty payments based on the progress of the asset through development stages. Milestone payments may be required, for example, upon approval of the product for marketing by a regulatory agency. In certain agreements, RXi is required to make royalty payments based upon a percentage of product sales.

     An individual milestone payment required under the licensing arrangements may be material, and in the event that multiple milestones are reached in the same period, the aggregate payments associated with the milestones could adversely affect the results of operations or affect the comparability of our period-to-period results. In addition, these licensing arrangements often give the Company the discretion to unilaterally terminate development of the product, which would allow the Company to avoid making the contingent payments; however, the Company is unlikely to cease development if the compound successfully achieves clinical testing objectives. During the quarter, the Company cancelled several of its licenses with the University of Massachusetts Medical School (“UMMS”). Additionally, in conjunction with the acquisition of Apthera, the Company assumed the rights and obligations of a certain license agreement, as amended, from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (“MDACC”) and The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc. (“HJF”) which grants exclusive worldwide rights to the use of one patent and one patent application involving the use of the E75 peptide. Under the terms of this license, we are required to make future annual maintenance fee payments, as well as clinical milestone payments and royalty payments based on sales of therapeutic products developed from the licensed technologies. As part of the expected payments under the terms of the license, the Company must pay an annual maintenance fee of $175,000 in 2011 and $200,000 in 2012. In addition, upon commencing the Phase 3 trial, we will pay a milestone payment of $200,000.