We’ll be keeping an eye out for everything from the Big Pharma bolt-ons and blockbusters to the reverse mergers and biotech-on-biotech buyouts.
Acquisitions are back, biotech. After a stagnant year with pharma sitting on a heap of cash, the fruits of in-person business development meetings are beginning to ripen.
And so today, Fierce Biotech launches the M&A Tracker, your one-stop shop for dealmaking in the biopharma universe. We’ll be keeping an eye out for everything from the Big Pharma bolt-ons and blockbusters to the reverse mergers and biotech-on-biotech buyouts. Here’s hoping the remaining three quarters of 2023 are filled with exciting deals that can pull the biotech industry out of its cloud to brighter days.
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Price: $0.91 per share, estimated $30 million*
Satsuma Pharma was in need of a helping hand to move its migraine spray forward, and the company behind the nasal spray tech stepped up with a 91 cents per share offer. Story * Deal value calculated by share price multipled by outstanding shares.
Prometheus created a lot of buzz with midstage data for bowel disease candidate PRA023 late last year. Merck emerged victorious with an offer of $10.8 billion, but it wasn't the only Big Pharma that tried. Story Ginkgo is bolstering its gene therapy capabilities with the purchase of AAV gene therapy capsid specialist StrideBio. The goal of the acquisition is to gain the biotech's intellectual property, not to get into drug development. The company's TRX-330 program for arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy will be sold off. Story EIP needed help to bring an ex-Vertex molecule into phase 2, and Diffusion Pharma proved to be the lifeline. The two companies decided to merge to create one publicly listed company to complete a clinical trial in dementia with Lewy bodies. Story Price: $1.85 per share, estimated $97.4 million*
* Deal value calculated by share price multipled by outstanding shares.
Flamingo Therapeutics picked up Dynacure in a deal that will see the combined companies work together to develop RNA-targeted oncology therapies. Dynacure CEO Stéphane van Rooijen, M.D., will lead the combination with Flamingo CEO Michael Garrett at his wing as chief operating officer. Story Another biotech searching for help after a rough go in the clinic, Adamis accepted a merger with neurology-focused DMK Pharmaceuticals. Story MEI Pharma and Infinity Pharma will join forces in a biotech-to-biotech merger that will see a newly named company rise from the ashes. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Infinity will become a wholly owned subsidiary of MEI, whose shareholders will own approximately 58% of the company. Story 2022 didn't go well for VBL Therapeutics, and so the immune- and inflammatory-disease-focused biotech will merge with cancer-focused platform company Notable. Story A new company focused on extended phage therapies will emerge from the combination of Erytech Pharma and French biotech Pherecydes. Story Price: Up to $100 million
In a merger of equals, 4SR Bio's sequencing technology will be brought over to hC Bio to identify more potential therapeutics. Story AstraZeneca saw a good time to strike as CinCor Pharma's share price dropped throughout the winter of 2022. The U.K. pharma offered up $1.8 billion to bring on the blood-pressure-focused biotech, which is working toward a phase 3 study for aldosterone synthase inhibitor baxdrostat in uncontrolled hypertension. Story