August round-up of pharma and biotech M&A activity
Deals and rumors returned to the pharma mergers and acquisitions world in August after a quiet summer, with one in particular grabbing the headlines.
Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD) splashed out on a big-money buy of Kite Pharma (Nasdaq: KITE), a big player in CAR-T cell therapies, while Japanese pharma major Daiichi Sankyo (TYO: 4568) denied that it was approached by Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) over a takeover.
| Company | Takeover candidate | Value | Why? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Collidion | Plex Pharmaceuticals | An 80% equity stake in exchange for an undisclosed cash sum and contributing to a drug asset under development | To drive forward Plex's drug discovery programs, including in Parkinson's disease, glioblastoma, and cataracts |
| Bristol-Myers Squibb | IFM Therapeutics | $300 million on closing and payments of up to $1.01 billion for each of the first products from the two programs on the achievement of certain milestones | To give B-MS full rights to IFM’s preclinical STING (stimulator of interferon genes) and NLRP3 agonist programs focused on enhancing the innate immune response for treating cancer |
| InfaCare Pharmaceutical | $80 million upfront and up to $345 million dependent on milestones | To acquire InfaCare's stannsoporfin, seen as having the potential to help thousands of infants whose severe jaundice is unresolved by current treatments | |
| Rostec | Marathon Group | Undisclosed merger | Part of a state action for ensuring Russia’s security in the field of pharmaceuticals |
| SK Capital | Perrigo API | $110 million | An acquisition complementing other leading companies that SK owns and operates in the API and FDF value chain |
| Galena Biopharma | Sellas Life Sciences Group | All-stock definitive merger agreement under which Sellas will merge into and become an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Galena | To create a combined company focused on the development of novel treatments for cancer |
| Alvogen | Omega Bittner | Undisclosed | To complement and significantly strengthen Alvogen’s existing portfolio in the Russian region |
| Gilead Sciences | Kite Pharma | $11.9 billion | To acquire one of the leading players in the emerging field of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies |
| CSL Behring | Calimmune | $91 million upfront plus up to $325 million dependent on milestones | To acquire Calimmune's pre-clinical asset, CAL-H, an HSC gene therapy for sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia, which complements CSL Behring's product portfolio and expertise in hematology, and the additional proprietary platform technologies, Select+ and Cytegrity, to address challenges relating to the commercialization of stem cell therapies |
| Mercachem | Syncom | Undisclosed merger | To form a leading mid-sized CRO capable of meeting the needs of an industry demanding a huge bandwith of highly complex chemistry solutions |
| Regenxbio | Dimension Therapeutics | $86 million | To add two lead product candidates to the Regenxbio pipeline, DTX301 for the treatment of ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency and DTX401 for glycogen storage disease type Ia |
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