Baxalta’s Predecessor Readies for the Spin Off

by | May 18, 2015 5:55 pm | Biotechnology

Baxter BioScience recently agreed to pay $900 million for the Oncaspar® product portfolio owned the Italian biopharma company, Sigma Tau Financiaria SpA. Oncaspar is a biologic used as part of a multi-agent chemotherapy regimen to treat lymphoblastic leukemia, and is marketed in the United States, Germany, Poland and certain other countries. In addition to the drug, Baxter BioScience also acquired another investigational biologic and an established oncology infrastructure with annual sales of approximately $100 million. Very soon, Baxter International Inc. (NYSE: BAX) plans to spin off Baxter BioScience into a new company called Baxalta Incorporated. This deal is a nice going-away present,... Read More »

MedImmune Parcels Out an Investgational Blood Cancer Candidate

by | Apr 20, 2015 4:13 pm | Biotechnology

Last week MedImmune Ltd., the biotech arm of AstraZeneca plc (NYSE: AZN), announced two placements for its investigational compound, MEDI4736. The first announcement was with Juno Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: JUNO), which signed an non-exclusive agreement to test its own investigational CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell candidates with MedImmune’s programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) immune check point inhibitor, MEDI4736, aiming for a combination therapy. No financial details were disclosed on that, but the next day, MedImmune announced a deal with a Swiss subsidiary of Celgene Corp. (NASDAQ: CELG), worth an upfront payment of $450 million from Celgene, to investigate... Read More »

Biotech Blow-Out in 2015

by | Apr 13, 2015 3:45 pm | Biotechnology

Mergers and acquisitions in the biotechnology sector are soaring, and we’ve got the data to prove it. We checked our M&A database, DealSearchOnline, to find the average price per biotechnology deal for each of the past five years. In that span, 2013 posted the highest average, nearly $629 million. We ran the same test for 2015, through April 10, and voila – of the 63 deals we’ve captured so far, 40 of them had prices. This year’s average price per biotech transaction is already $879 million—the highest since we began following this sector in 2000. Read More »

Another Record Falls in Q1:15

by | Apr 4, 2015 3:19 pm | Behavioral Health Care, Biotechnology, Home Health & Hospice, Hospitals, Laboratories, MRI & Dialysis, Long-Term Care, Managed Care, Medical Devices, Other Services, Pharmaceuticals, Physician Medical Groups, Rehabilitation

Now that the month is officially over, we can report our preliminary Q1:15 results—and it was another record breaker, at least for transactions. The 346 deals logged so far are 109% higher than the first quarter of 2014. You would think that the $104.7 billion in combined spending would set another record, but no. In Q1:09, we tracked $127.2 billion spent on 202 deals. That’s when Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) bought Wyeth for $68 billion.  Here’s the preliminary breakdown of Q1:15 — and remember, the spending is only for deals that disclosed prices. Read More »

March Healthcare M&A Madness

by | Mar 30, 2015 2:37 pm | Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals

March isn’t quite over as we write this, and neither is the madness—which won’t stop us from posting the biggest deals of the month. As of Friday, March 27, $34.4 billion has been committed to finance about 105 transactions. Of course, $21 billion of that comes from the AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) acquisition of Pharmacyclics (NASDAQ: PCYC). Next week, preliminary Q1:15 results! Read More »

Janssen Scoops Up XO1

by | Mar 23, 2015 8:31 pm | Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals

No, XO1 is not a drug candidate, it’s the name of an asset-centric virtual biopharmaceutical company, XO1 Limited, a UK-based portfolio company of Index Ventures. Janssen Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: JNJ) paid an undisclosed price for the virtual company, which was founded solely to develop the anti-thrombin antibody ichorcumab, which basically acts as an anticoagulant but doesn’t cause bleeding, like previous blood thinners. XO1 and Index Ventures licensed the technology from Cambridge University Hospitals, where it was developed. Read More »