Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd. announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the company’s Investigational New Drug (IND) application for the novel kinase inhibitor BAL0891, a potential first-in-class mitotic checkpoint inhibitor (MCI) that drives aberrant tumor cell division leading to tumor cell death. The IND approval triggers a milestone payment of CHF 1.85 million to the Dutch precision medicine company, NTRC, from which Basilea in-licensed BAL0891 in 2018. Under the terms of the agreement, NTRC remains eligible to receive development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments and royalties on global sales.