AbbVie to Acquire Stemcentrx, for up to $9.8 Billion

AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV), a Chicago,Illinois-based global biopharmaceutical company, is to acquire South San Francisco-based cancer drug startup Stemcentrx, for approximately $5.8 billion in cash and stock.

The transaction, which is still subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close in second-quarter 2016. Upon completion, AbbVie intends to execute an accelerated share repurchase program of up to $4 billion of the company’s common stock.

Led by Brian Slingerland, founder and CEO, Stemcentrx is advancing Rova-T, a novel biomarker-specific therapy that is derived from cancer stem cells and targets delta-like protein 3 (DLL3), which is expressed in more than 80% of SCLC patient tumors and is not present in healthy tissue. Registrational trials for third-line small cell lung cancer are expected to complete enrollment by the end of 2016.

Beyond Rova-T, the company has four novel compounds in clinical trials across several solid tumor indications including triple-negative breast cancer, ovarian cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. It also has pre-clinical compounds advancing toward clinical trials in 2016 and a proprietary technology platform that leverages stem cell biology to identify and screen potential targets against live tumor tissue to more predictably advance discovery and development of new assets.

Richard A. Gonzalez, chairman and chief executive officer, AbbVie has a clinical oncology pipeline comprised of more than a dozen assets, with 5 programs in late-stage development, spanning nearly 200 clinical trials across more than 19 types of tumors. It currently markets Imbruvica®, a BTK-inhibitor approved to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), mantle cell lymphoma and Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia, and VenclextaTM, a BCL-2 inhibitor approved to treat CLL in patients with 17p deletion.

FinSMEs

29/04/2016

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