Deals & M&A

Pharma groups must decide how best to invest their cash to generate the biggest returns, and while huge sums can be made with luck and good judgement, strategic missteps can have far-reaching consequences.

The writing was on the wall for InDex after cobitolimod flopped for ulcerative colitis but that should soon been scrubbed off now a reverse-merger candidate has been identified to save the Stockholm-based biotech from liquidation.

CEO Paul Hudson says that the French major will continue to progress early-stage cancer projects despite jettisoning some oncology programs in favor of reallocating much of its research budget to immunology.

Cidara conferred global rights to its novel antifungal to marketing partner, Mundipharma, while reacquiring a flu prophylaxis it licensed to J&J in 2021 and gaining $240m in new funding to back development.

UK-based Ochre Bio has signed its first major deal with Boehringer Ingelheim. Scrip talked to its co-founder and CEO, Jack O’Meara, about its human tissue-based drug discovery platform, its resulting RNA platform for liver disease and how the fledgling drug company's early work mirrored that seen in diagnostics.

Incyte will pay $750m to acquire privately held Escient and its first-in-class oral antagonists of Mas-related G protein-coupled receptors X2 and X4.

The editorial team from Scrip discusses the M&A potential of various emerging biopharmas, such as Viking, Verona, Altimmune, Xenon and Crinetics.

Major Japanese companies Takeda, Astellas and SMBC are joining hands to establish a new joint venture with $3.9m capital and based in Japan’s largest biocluster Shonan iPark to help incubate local biopharma start-ups.

Deal Snapshot: Ipsen committed up to $1.8bn in upfront and milestone fees to develop novel treatments for rare neurological diseases with Skyhawk’s RNA-targeting small molecule platform.

M&A edition: Mergers by Century/Clade, Eliem/Tenet, Kintara/TuHURA, Aditxt/Appili, Onconova/Traws and Apotex/Searchlight follow other companies joining forces in a tight cash environment.

In a partnership worth $380m, BMS has reserved clinical and commercial capacity with Cellares, a company whose $255m series C round it participated in last year.

Corbus has presence in both antibody drug conjugates and obesity, and was the stand-out small-cap target for investors with a fivefold increase in its share price in Q1.