Clovis Oncology buys Italian firm for $200 million

US biotech firm Clovis Oncology (Nasdaq: CLVS) says it has acquired EOS (Ethical Oncology Science), a privately-held Italian biopharmaceutical company developing a novel targeted therapy to treat cancer, with the news seeing Clovis’ shares rise as much as 12%.

EOS owns the exclusive global (excluding China) development and commercialization rights for lucitanib, an oral, dual-selective inhibitor of the tyrosine kinase activity of fibroblast growth factor (FGF) receptors 1 and 2 (FGFR1/2) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptors 1-3 (VEGFR1-3). In 2012, EOS sublicensed lucitanib rights in Europe and the rest-of-world (RoW) markets, excluding China, to French independent drugmaker Laboratoires Servier. Clovis holds exclusive rights for lucitanib in the USA and Japan, and will collaborate with Servier on the global clinical development of lucitanib.

Financial terms

Under the terms of the deal, Clovis is acquiring EOS for an up-front payment of $200 million, which includes $190 million in Clovis common stock (3,713,731 shares) and $10 million in cash. Clovis will pay an additional $65 million in cash upon the initial approval of lucitanib by the US Food and Drug Association.

Also under the license agreement with Servier, Clovis is entitled to receive up to 350 million euros (about $470 million) on the achievement of development and commercial milestones, as well as royalties on sales of lucitanib in the Servier territories. Clovis will also pay the EOS shareholders up to an additional 115 million euros in cash on the receipt by Clovis of certain of the milestone payments pursuant to the Servier license agreement.

“We have been interested in lucitanib for some time and are pleased to have acquired EOS to add this program to our portfolio,” said Patrick Mahaffy, Clovis Oncology’s president and chief executive. “It is highly consistent with our focus on developing targeted therapies that provide meaningful benefit to specific patient populations. We are extremely encouraged with lucitanib’s 50% response rate seen to date in heavily pre-treated targeted patients and we intend to develop it aggressively, in collaboration with our partner Servier.”