Deals
Next year will see plenty of deals in the biopharma space and a growing number of them will come from China, attendees at the Jefferies London Healthcare Conference heard.
Sun and other major Indian firms outline how things are shaping up for products and manufacturing in China - while it’s a mixed bag, the wider outlook is upbeat. M&A and GLP-1 plays were among other key areas discussed during Q2 earnings.
After completing due diligence, private equity firm Brookfield is reportedly close to launching an offer of €10.50 euros per share to acquire the Spanish major. Given that at least one investor believes Grifols is worth at least €20 a share, sparks could fly.
Scrip’s Joseph Haas discusses biopharma M&A topics such as why deal activity declined during Q2 and Q3 with Gerardo Ubaghs of Frontier Medicines and Jason Silvers of Generate Biomedicines
The US firm wants to hook up with the German group to create a global innovative services company but its €11.00 per share cash offer looks unlikely to sway Evotec shareholders.
Plus deals involving Nippon Shinyaku/Atsena, Daiichi Sankyo/Alteogen, Santen/Arctic Vision, Henlius/SVAX, Nxera/Antiverse, Y-mAbs/Nobelpharma, Formosa/DAVI, Mochida/United Therapeutics, GSK/Chimagen and GC/Novelty Nobility.
The company will in-license LM-299, gaining a PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody that could help it defend its blockbuster PD-1 franchise against looming competition.
The German group is doubling down on the hot PD-(L)1 x VEGF-A bispecific space but will still have to contend with Summit and Akeso’s more advanced rival.
Deal Snapshot: Flagship-backed Vesalius will use its AI/machine learning platform to seek novel intervention points and underlying causes to better address Parkinson’s disease in GSK alliance.
With two misses for emraclidine, AbbVie will hope to extract some value from the Cerevel acquisition from the Parkinson’s drug tavapadon, while BMS may get a big lead in the schizophrenia space.
Plus deals involving Synaffix/BigHat, AbbVie/EvolveImmune, Servier/Aitia, Dr. Falk/Kynos, Bayer/Dewpoint and more.
With Chair Lina Khan expected to exit the commission, the incoming administration may consider elevating one of the Republican commissioners on the panel to succeed her, at least on an acting basis.
The Denmark-based major intends to build on its heritage in diabetes and is keen to hear from innovators in a space where prevalence is on the rise but is not being served by improved new products.
Drug pricing policies, M&A oversight, FDA and HHS leadership, the Biosecure Act and tariffs are among the many issues pharmaceutical manufacturers will be closely watching.
Deal Snapshot: Novo is partnering with Ascendis on less frequently dosed drugs for metabolic diseases, committing up to $285m for a lead program, a once-monthly GLP-1 receptor agonist.
As it posts third-quarter numbers that again reveal the decline of revenues from its multiple sclerosis portfolio, the US biotech major is entering into the hot area of targeted protein degradation to boost its immunology and neurology pipeline.
Troubled GlycoMimetics will merge with Crescent, bringing its PD-1- and VEGF-targeting bispecific CR-001 and gaining a public listing. Crescent also will raise $200m to help position itself against PD-1xVEGF leaders Akeso/Summit and BioNTech.
Aliada’s ALIA-1758 addresses the same target as Lilly’s Kisunla, but is paired with a blood-brain barrier transport technology that may offer high affinity and potential for lower dosing.
Unlike previous deals in this space which were mostly to do with discovering new compounds, the big pharma is paying $150m upfront to license a specific product.
Lyell believes ImmPACT’s dual CD19/20-targeted CAR-T could offer better response rates than Yescarta or Breyanzi and will focus on IMPT-314 while terminating much of its own pipeline.