Lured by what Amgen Inc. CEO Bob Bradway called a "compelling opportunity" to strengthen the Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based company's oncology portfolio and support its international expansion strategy, Amgen on March 4 moved to buy South San Francisco-based Five Prime Therapeutics Inc. for $38 per share, or about $1.9 billion.
Boston Scientific Corp. has inked an agreement with an affiliate of Baring Private Equity Asia to acquire the global surgical business of Lumenis Ltd. for $1.07 billion up front. The med-tech giant has had a relationship with Lumenis for more than two decades and currently sells its urology laser portfolio in the U.S. and Japan. The transaction, expected to close in the second half of the year, expands Marlborough, Mass.-based Boston Scientific’s global urology footprint.
Having rung the bell in phase II last summer, Ovid Therapeutics Inc. and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. signed a pact giving the latter global rights to develop and commercialize soticlestat, a first-in-class inhibitor of cholesterol 24-hydroxylase for the treatment of developmental and epileptic encephalopathies including Dravet syndrome (DS) and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS).
PERTH, Australia – Sydney-based Kazia Therapeutics Ltd. has out-licensed its ovarian cancer drug, Cantrixil (TRX-E-002-1), to Sweden’s Oasmia Pharmaceutical AB in a deal worth up to $46 million.
Oasmia will pay $4 million up front, and development milestones worth up to $42 million and double-digit sales royalties.
Agilent Technologies Inc. will acquire Resolution Bioscience Inc. for $550 million in cash at closing and up to an additional $145 million based on performance milestones. The deal will expand Agilent’s cancer diagnostics offerings and its presence in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology for the fast-growing precision medicine market. The acquisition is expected to close in April 2021.
HONG KONG – Looking to improve treatment outcomes for Alzheimer’s patients, Shanghai-based Luye Pharma Group has inked a deal to hand the Japanese rights for its leading treatment to Japan’s Towa Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Made through Luye’s subsidiary Luye Pharma Switzerland AG, the agreement gives Towa the exclusive rights for the development and commercialization of the Rivastigmine multi-day transdermal patch (Rivastigmine MD) in Japan.
Hologic Inc. continues to strengthen its diagnostics businesses via tuck-ins, this time with the acquisition of Diagenode SA for $159 million. The Belgium-based developer of molecular assays and epigenetics products counts more than 30 real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests in its portfolio. Marlborough, Mass.-based Hologic has been on a spending spree in recent months. In January, the company completed the acquisition of Somatex Medical Technologies GmbH for about $64 million and agreed to buy molecular diagnostics company Biotheranostics Inc. for $230 million.
Debiopharm International SA is more interested in developing drugs than marketing them. Bertrand Ducrey, CEO of Debiopharm, said he envisions the drugs the company is stewarding through development as a "living pipeline" that needs to be refreshed as drugs get to late-stage development. So Debiopharm is shipping global rights to xevinapant (Debio-1143) and its follow-on inhibitor of apoptosis proteins antagonist, Debio-4028, to Merck KGaA, of Darmstadt, Germany.
PERTH, Australia – Sydney-based Kazia Therapeutics Ltd. has out-licensed its ovarian cancer drug, Cantrixil (TRX-E-002-1), to Sweden’s Oasmia Pharmaceutical AB in a deal worth up to $46 million.
Oasmia will pay $4 million up front, and development milestones worth up to $42 million and double-digit sales royalties.
Without any mega-mergers completed in the first two months of 2021, M&A values have significantly plummeted from those recorded in each of the last two years, although both deals and M&As in January and February are tracking similarly to prior years in terms of volume.