Pfizer Inc.’s appetite for acquisitions shows no signs of abating as it announced this morning its plan to acquire biotech Seagen Inc. for a whopping $43 billion in a move that will double the size of its early stage oncology pipeline. Under the deal, unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both firms, Pfizer will pay Seagen $229 per share. Bothell, Wash.-based Seagen expects to amass $2.2 billion in revenue in 2023, representing 12% year-on-year-growth, royalties and collaboration and license agreements from its four, FDA-approved products for the treatment of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies, antibody-drug conjugate drugs Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin), Padcev (enfortumab vedotin) and Tivdak (tisotumab vedotin), and tyrosin kinase inhibitor Tukysa (tucatinib). Read More
Shares of Provention Bio Inc. (NASDAQ:PRVB) closed March 13 at $24.10, up $17.40, or 259%, after Wall Street learned that collaborator Sanofi SA intends to acquire the firm for $25 per share in cash, which works out to an equity value of about $2.9 billion. The transaction brings Paris-based Sanofi the type 1 diabetes (T1D) therapy Tzield (teplizumab-mzwv), approved by the U.S. FDA in 2022 as the first and only therapy to delay the onset of stage 3 disease in adults and in pediatric patients ages 8 and older with T1D that has reached stage 2. Read More
As the aftershocks of two U.S. bank failures rattled global markets, the Biden administration rushed to calm the nerves of the world and to prevent an even bigger tremor. “The banking system is safe,” President Joe Biden said March 13, as he assured companies and individuals who had accounts with Silicon Valley Bank or Signature Bank that they would have access to all their deposits now that the federal government has taken over the failed banks – including deposits exceeding the $250,000 protected by the FDIC. Read More
The U.K. arm of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is to be acquired by HSBC UK Bank plc for a symbolic £1, after senior ministers and the Bank of England worked all weekend on a rescue package. The acquisition is to complete immediately, averting what the U.K. government had acknowledged would be a crisis for the biotech and tech sector. Read More
Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. will make available by the end of this month Daybue (trofinetide), a synthetic analogue of the amino‐terminal tripeptide of IGF-1 for Rett syndrome (RS), which was greenlighted by the U.S. FDA March 10 and remains in the works for fragile X syndrome as well as undisclosed other indications. Read More
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Anheart, Ausper, First Wave, Iliad, Innocare, Merck & Co., Palvella. Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Astellas, Genentech, Intercept, Molecular Templates, Pfizer, Seagen. Read More
