Eli Lilly Doubles Down on Immuno-Oncology
ARMO BioSciences (NASDAQ: ARMO) is a late-stage immuno-oncology company that develops a pipeline of novel, proprietary product candidates designed to activate the immune system of cancer patients to recognize and eradicate tumors. On a trailing 12-month basis, it generated a net loss of $42.4 million. Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) overlooked the loss as it eyed the real prize–the addition of pegilodecakin, a PEGylated IL-10, which has demonstrated clinical benefits as a single agent, and in combination with both chemotherapy and checkpoint inhibitor therapy, across several tumor types. Pegilodecakin is currently being studied in a Phase 3 clinical trial in pancreatic cancer, and... Read More »Takeda Takes on Shire for $81.5 Billion
Big Pharma deals are back, more than ever. After six weeks of offers, refusals, talks and more, Japanese drug giant Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (OTCQB: TKPYY) reached an agreement to acquire Shire plc (NASDAQ: SHPG) for $81.5 billion, including assumed debt of $19.54 billion. It’s the largest healthcare deal announced ever, unless you count Pfizer’s (NYSE: PFE) hostile stalking of AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) through much of 2014, with bids reported to be around $118 billion. And we don’t. Looking back over past pharmaceutical deals (that closed), this takes the record from Pfizer, which announced its acquisition of Wyeth, Inc. for approximately $78.5 billion, including $10.5 billion... Read More »
Roche Deal for Flatiron Health Builds its Oncology Muscle
Roche (SIX: RO) couldn’t let a good startup slip away. The Swiss drug maker announced it will pay $1.9 billion to keep New York City-based Flatiron Health, Inc. from going public. When it was founded in 2012, Flatiron’s goal was to gather and analyze data on cancer treatments and sells software based on those insights to help researchers develop drugs more quickly, and with more targeted precision. Toward that end, the company produced an oncology-specific electronic health record (EHR). It currently partners with more than 265 community cancer clinics, six major academic research centers and 14 out of the top 15 therapeutic oncology companies. Roche already holds a 12.6% stake... Read More »
Biotechnology Gets the Usual January Boost
The Biotechnology sector roared to life in 2017, posting a record 209 transactions. That’s 20% higher than the 174 deals announced in 2016. The previous record for the sector was set in 2009, with 193 transactions announced in the space. Spending for those 209 deals in 2017 didn’t set new records, but did post an impressive $54.5 billion in disclosed prices. That’s 283% higher than the $18.6 billion recorded in all of 2016, but not close to the secctor’s annual spending record of $93.9 billion, set in 2008. Every January, the Biotechnology Showcase is held in San Francisco, concurrent with the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference. And every January, this sector sees... Read More »2017 Biggest Healthcare Deals by Sector
2017 was another big year for billion-dollar healthcare transactions. Among the deals that disclosed prices, 44 topped the billion-dollar mark, for a total of approximately $263.1 billion. Although that number seems high, there were 50 billion-dollar deals announced in 2015, although those totaled a slightly lower $240.1 billion. 2016 posted lower totals for both the number of billion-dollar deals (39) and combined prices ($194.1 billion). Of course the biggest healthcare deal in 2017 was the $77 billion acquisition of Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET) by CVS Health (NYSE: CVS). But there were many more sizable transactions across the sectors, as the chart below illustrates. See how many you remember... Read More »Schedule a demo
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