Authors:
David Stuart
M&A Practice Leader and Director
Jim McCusker
BD Leader and Director
Zack Crowson
M&A Principal
Introducing CREO’s Monthly Life Sciences Recap, covering all the major M&A, co-development, licensing, and partnership agreements and any other major events impacting the industry.
CREO’s perspective
Despite minimal IPO activity, M&A and co-development initiatives remain strong. Notably, major biopharmaceutical players like Merck and Johnson & Johnson continue to forge significant acquisitions and partnerships with early-stage biopharma and emerging medical device firms. We expect this trend to continue to persist as leading companies seek innovative ways to expand their portfolios and enhance revenue streams.
Notable M&A transactions
Aug 12: Crown Laboratories to acquire Revance Therapeutics for $924 million
- Transaction expected to close by the end of the year and represents a 111% premium to Revance’s 60-day volume weighted average share price
Aug 9: Merck to acquire CN201 from Curon Biopharma for up to $1.3 billion
- Upfront payment of $700 million and potential to receive up to $600 million in milestone payments associated with the development and regulatory approval of CN201
Aug 8: Johnson & Johnson to acquire V-Wave for up to $1.7 billion
- Upfront payment of $600 million with potential for additional regulatory and commercial milestones payments up to approximately $1.1 billion
Aug 7: Pharmacosmos to acquire G1 Therapeutics for $405 million
- Deal is expected to close late in the third quarter and represents a 133% premium to G1’s 30-day volume weighted average share price
Major co-development, licensing and partnerships
Aug 28: Bayer enters into a collaboration and licensing agreement with NextRNA Therapeutics
- Joint developing two first-in-class molecule programs targeting IncRNAs
- NextRNA will receive up to $547 million for both programs including upfront payments, research funding, and development and commercial milestones as well as tiered royalties on net sales
Aug 20: Adcendo enters into a licensing agreement with Multitude Therapeutics
- Licensing agreement for the development of a novel, highly differentiated antibody-drug conjugate targeting Tissue Factor
- Includes upfront and payments contingent on development, regulatory, and commercial milestones worth over $1 billion in total
Aug 6: Genentech enters into licensing agreement with Sangamo Therapeutics
- Sangamo will receive $50 million in near-term upfront license fees and is eligible to earn up to $1.9 billion based on development and commercial milestones
Aug 1: Passage Bio out-licenses three of its gene therapies to GEMMA Biotherapeutics
- GEMMABio is a newly formed company, co-founded by Dr. James Wilson, and is a spinout from UPenn’s Gene Therapy Program
- Passage Bio will receive upfront payment of $10 million for the purchase of clinical product supply and up to an additional $124 million contingent on development and commercial milestones
IPO activity
Aug 12: Actuate Therapeutics raises $22.4 million in their IPO
- Clinical-stage biopharmaceutical focused on difficult to treat cancers
Capital raise announcements
Aug 22: Borealis Biosciences raises $150 million Series A
- Verant Ventures and Novartis have launched Borealis to develop RNA therapeutics targeting kidney diseases
Aug 21: GondolaBio raises $300 million for new BridgeBio spin-off
- BridgeBio Pharma has transferred several rare disease preclinical and early clinical stage drugs to a new company, GondolaBio and has raised $300 million
Aug 7: IDRx raises $120 Million in series B
- To support development of their lead candidate that treats patients with KIT–mutant gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST)
Aug 1: Outpace Bio raises $144 million Series B
- Financing syndicate led by RA Capital Management for an oversubscribed series B round to advance multiple programmed T cell product candidates to early clinical proof-of-concept in solid tumors and to expand their pipeline & platform
Other news / announcements
Aug 8: David Stuart’s 2024 mid-year M&A update article published in Life Science Leader
