Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co. plans to acquire the private U.S. biotech Boston Biomedical Inc., making good on a promise to increase its R&D focus on oncology. The Japanese pharma announced the heavily back-end loaded acquisition Feb. 29, agreeing to pay $200 million to Boston Biomedical shareholders upfront and an additional $540 million in development milestones and $1.89 billion in sales milestones if net sales reach $4 billion.
With the acquisition, Dainippon will gain two potential first-in-class drugs targeting cancer stem cells and a drug discovery platform. Both...