GTx Inc. and the University of Tennessee Research Foundation have reached an agreement in a dispute over income from a drug therapy, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Dr. Mitchell Steiner, a professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and a co-founder of GTx, developed the drug therapy.

Licensure agreements for Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators drug therapy exist between the company and the Research Foundation that is affiliated with the university. One of the drug therapy’s possible applications is to treat muscle loss in cancer patients. This therapy is undergoing clinical trials and has not received approval from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, but it has attracted investment from a pharmaceutical giant.

GTx filed suit in May against the Research Foundation after it claimed it was entitled to 5 percent of an equity investment in the company from Merck & Co. Merck had purchased $30 million of common stock in GTx on top of a $40 million payment to sublicense the drug therapy.

The $30 million stock purchase was the point of contention in the lawsuit. The Research Foundation received a $2 million royalty payment for the $40 million sublicensing payment.

The Research Foundation and GTx amended their agreements last week and agreed to dismiss the lawsuit, according to SEC filing.

“The parties entered into the license amendments to clarify the treatment of certain payments that may be received by the company from its current and future sublicenses for purposes of determining sublicense fees payment to UTRF by the company under the terms of the UTRF Licenses, including with respect to the treatment of payments made to the company in exchange for the sale of the Company’s securities in connection with sublicensing arrangements,” the company stated in the filing.

GTx said it had agreed to pay $540,000 to the Research Foundation “in consideration for the execution of the license amendments.”

GTx and the Research Foundation were working on a joint press release on the agreement Monday morning, said Joy Fisher, director of marketing and business development for the Research Foundation.

“One of the elements of the agreement is that we have agreed with GTx to issue a mutually acceptable public statement concerning the resolution of this issue,” Fisher said. “We are working through that process so we don’t want to put out any kind of official statement until we get that done.”

The lawsuit was filed last May in Shelby County Chancery Court.