Mergers & acquisitions
Charles River Laboratories will acquire Cognate BioServices in an $875 million cash deal that will significantly expand the company’s capabilities in the high-growth cell and gene therapy sector.
The combined company will be called Gemini Therapeutics, Inc. and will trade under the ticker symbol, GMTX.
Jazz Pharmaceuticals will beef up its neurology pipeline with a $7.2 billion buyout of GW Pharmaceuticals, the only company yet to score U.S. regulatory approval for a cannabis-derived product.
Shares of Viela Bio skyrocketed more than 52% in premarket trading after Ireland’s Horizon Therapeutics announced it was acquiring the company in a $3.05 billion deal.
Thermo Fisher Scientific, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, is acquiring Mesa Biotech for about $450 million in cash. There is also an additional $100 million in cash after certain milestones are hit.
Thermo Fisher Scientific announced the completion of Henogen SA, Groupe Novasep SAS’s viral vector manufacturing business in Belgium. The deal was for €725 million in cash.
Many buyers are becoming increasingly interested in buying these promising companies before they go public, as this often makes the purchase more economically feasible.
The deal adds Kymab’s lead asset KY1005 to its pipeline, a human monoclonal antibody targeting key immune system regulator OX40L.
Merck KGaA buys Amptec for mRNA tech and Chimerix acquires Oncoceutics for cancer pipeline.
Although they don’t necessarily agree on numbers, most reports indicate that 2020 was not a particularly good year for mergers and acquisitions in the biopharma industry.
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