Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology company, agreed on Wednesday to buy Scandinavian biopharmaceutical company Nuevolution AB for 1.61 billion Swedish crowns ($166.8 million) to boost its position in drug discovery.
Copenhagen-headquartered Nuevolution said its board unanimously recommended Amgen’s cash offer of 32.5 Swedish crowns per share, a premium of 168.6% to Nuevolution’s closing price on Tuesday.
Nuevolution has a patent protected drug research platform to identify small-molecule drug candidates to be taken as pills against cancer and inflammatory diseases.
Most new drugs in these therapeutic areas are currently based on large proteins made from genetically modified living cells which need to be injected and are expensive to manufacture.
Nuevolution has partnered with pharma majors including Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck & Co, according to its website.
The company was founded in 2011 and employs 40 full-time professionals.
Amgen, which is grappling with competition to its new migraine treatment Aimovig and cholesterol fighter Repatha, said it had collaborated with Nuevolution since 2016 and that it had exercised opt-in rights for two cancer treatment approaches that have emerged from the alliance.
At 0850 GMT, Nuevolution shares were up 165% at 32.1 crowns
By Philip George, Ludwig Burger and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen
Source: Reuters
A monkeypox outbreak is emerging in the U.S. and Europe, and at least one country is amping up countermeasure preparedness. Bavarian Nordic has secured a contract with an unnamed European country to supply its smallpox vaccine, called Imvanex in Europe, in response to the emergence of monkeypox cases, the Danish company said Thursday.
Moderna’s recent chief financial officer debacle—in which Jorge Gomez departed on his second day on the job—raised questions about the company’s hiring process given its rush to global biopharma prominence. The most obvious one: How was it possible for Gomez to be hired when he was under investigation by his previous employer, Dentsply Sirona of Charlotte, N.C.
Merck & Co. is plucking a cancer project from the branch of Chinese-based Kelun Pharmaceutical for up to $1.4 billion, but details from the New Jersey-based Big Pharma have been hard to come by. The deal, first disclosed Monday on the Shenzhen stock exchange, has Merck handing over $47 million in upfront cash in exchange for ex-China rights to a “macromolecular tumor project.”