Deals
The proposed acquisition by global investment firms Carlyle and SK Capital Partners could net shareholders $3 per share plus potential CVR dollars and provide bluebird bio with primary capital to expand the commercial reach of its gene therapies.
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Look for renewed investment driven by lower interest rates in the new year, and a continued focus on late-stage assets, oncology and reaping the benefits of AI.
M&A didn’t return as hoped for in 2024. The biopharma industry is heading into the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference next week in a grim mood.
By far, the largest acquisition of 2024 was Novo Holdings’ yet-to-be-closed buyout of manufacturer Catalent at $16.5 billion. Outside of that, the leading pharmaceutical companies kept to less than $5 billion per deal.
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The deal follows a $1.06 billion U.S. contract in July 2024 and a $1.24 billion agreement with an Asia-based pharma a few months later.
On the company’s Q4 earnings call where an eyepopping $88.8 billion in full-year sales were revealed, leaders shifted focus away from enormous takeovers to single-digit billion buy outs.
With an eye toward advancing a novel antibody-drug conjugate for gastrointestinal cancers, ArriVent is the latest biopharma player to ink a deal with a Chinese biotech.
Five years ago, Gilead signed a massive deal with Galapagos. After a restructuring, the pharma is still hunting for the potential it saw at the original signing.
Biopharma executives shared their thoughts on the potential impacts of the new administration; Annalee Armstrong recaps JPM and her talks with Biogen, Gilead, Novavax and more; Wegovy’s higher dose induces more weight loss; AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s Dato-DXd scores its first FDA approval.
Biopharma executives make their predictions for the year ahead, from a bold forecast for the return of the megadeal to a plea for the slow, healthy recovery of the industry at large.
While investors and analysts push for a deal, Biogen CEO Chris Viehbacher and Head of Development Priya Singhal refuse to make one out of desperation.
J.P. Morgan kicked off with a flurry of deals, with Eli Lilly, GSK and Gilead all announcing deals potentially worth more than $1 billion while J&J committed $14.6 billion to buy Intra-Cellular. These moves have reinvigorated sentiment across the biopharma industry.
In exchange for its investigational gene therapies, Regenxbio will receive $110 million upfront and up to $700 million in milestones. After hitting an all-time low of $6.95 at close of business yesterday, the stock surged on the news by nearly 20% before markets opened Tuesday.
The multi-billion deal, in which Eli Lilly will acquire Scorpion Therapeutics’ STX-478 program, is a shot in the arm for PI3K treatments, which have had a mixed history over the past few years.