Mergers & acquisitions

The companies have received all required regulatory approvals to complete the deal, the largest for the sector in the past three years and the biggest for the hot antibody-drug conjugate market.
With the acquisition, AstraZeneca will gain access to Icosavax’s investigational combination vaccine IVX-A12, which is being developed for respiratory syncytial virus and human metapneumovirus in older adults.
FDA
Friday’s FDA approval of Vertex-CRISPR’s Casgevy and bluebird bio’s Lyfgenia has immediately revealed startling differences between these two gene therapies: price and a black-box warning.
The deal, announced late Wednesday, will provide AbbVie with access to Cerevel Therapeutics’ pipeline of clinical-stage and preclinical candidates for psychiatric and neurological diseases.
This week we discuss ups and downs in the weight loss and ADC markets - including Altimmune, Pfizer setbacks, AbbVie’s ImmunoGen buy and more.
The acquisition will give Roche access to Carmot’s clinical portfolio of three GLP-1 receptor agonists, placing it squarely in the middle of the competition to treat overweight and obesity.
AbbVie’s $10.1 billion ImmunoGen buy and Altimmune’s Phase II win demonstrate that the antibody-drug conjugate market is red hot in cancer and GLP-1 drugs for weight loss are an absolute craze.
Facing the loss of Humira revenues from biosimilar competition, AbbVie is looking to grow its pipeline by acquiring ImmunoGen and its antibody-drug conjugate Elahere, which was granted FDA accelerated approval last year.
This week on The Weekly we talk struggles with ⁠GLP-1 drug shortages⁠ and what that might mean for Novo and Lilly competitors; Regeneron and Sanofi positive results for ⁠⁠⁠Dupixent⁠⁠⁠ in COPD. Plus, Merck ⁠buys Caraway⁠, Beigene’s ⁠deal⁠ with Ensem, ⁠ups⁠ and ⁠downs⁠ for Flagship.
The buy brings three small molecules in preclinical development for Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and lysosomal storage diseases into Merck’s pipeline.
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