Scintilla Goes Deep into Pain Management
Scintilla Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a subsidiary of Sorrento Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: SRNE), is spending up to $270 million to expand its pain management pipeline. On August 8, Scintilla announced its purchase of SCILEX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for an upfront payment of $70 million. Scilex’s lead product candidate, ZTildo™ (lidocaine patch 1.8%) is being developed for the treatment of intractable cancer pain. In July 2015, SCILEX filed a new drug application (NDA) for ZTildo™, and is planning an NDA re-submission for a potential FDA action date in mid-2017. SCILEX’ product pipeline includes line extensions of ZTildo™ as well as other novel patch technologies in development. The patch... Read More »First Half of 2016 Shows Strength in M&A
Ever since the rally in health care mergers and acquisitions began in 2014, we’ve been waiting for the inevitable slam-on-the-brakes quarter. That rally was sparked by the advent of newly insured families and individuals entering the healthcare market, beginning on January 1, 2014. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, health care M&A topped 1,000 transactions that year and has never looked back. Isn’t it about time for the party to end? Not according to our data for the first six months of 2016, compared with the same period in 2014 and 2015. (But if you read our monthly M&A roundup on page 18, you may have second thoughts.) In the first half of 2016, deal volume... Read More »Pfizer Buys into Gene Therapy
Pfizer’s (NYSE: PFE) interest in the field of gene therapy just got real. The pharma giant just spent $193 million to pick up Bamboo Therapeutics Inc., a privately-held biotechnology company that focuses on therapies for rare and devastating central nervous system (CNS) and neuromuscular diseases. In the first quarter of 2016, Pfizer acquired 22% of Bamboo’s fully diluted equity for $43 million. On August 2, the company announced that it had acquired the remaining equity for an upfront payment of $150 million. Bamboo Therapeutics is also eligible to receive milestone payments of up to $495 million. Since 2014, Pfizer has established gene therapy-based collaborations, research and... Read More »Kite Pharma Soars with Two T-Cell Acquisitions
Kite Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ: KITE) has been busy lately, announcing two separate license deals in the last week of July. On July 25, it acquired the exclusive worldwide rights to technology that advances the development of off-the-shelf allogeneic T-cell therapies from renewable pluripotent stem cells, also known as the ATO system, in a deal with the University of California, Los Angeles. In connection with this agreement, Kite entered into a sponsored research agreement with UCLA to support ongoing preclinical research for the ATO system. Two days later, Kite entered into a license agreement with the National Institute of Health for the license to its fully human anti-CD19 chimeric antigen... Read More »June 2016 M&A Results Show Strength
Uncertainty is the hobgoblin of the merger and acquisition markets, and the month of June was a high point (or low point, depending on your perspective) for anxiety in global financial markets. Still, the healthcare deals kept rolling in. Our preliminary total for June 2016 stands at 115 transactions, exactly equal with the same month a year ago. Compared with May’s total of 141 deals, though, June’s total does look as if someone is applying the brakes. It takes 12 months to make a year, though, and one month’s results do not create a trend. The digital health sector turned in the strongest gain compared with June 2015, when only two deals were announced. This June, 22 deals were announced... Read More »Schedule a demo
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