Novartis has agreed to acquire Anthos Therapeutics in a deal worth up to $3.1bn, after Blackstone Life Sciences funded the development of its treatment to help prevent strokes and other serious blood clots.
Anthos Therapeutics was set up by Blackstone Life Sciences after it licensed the drug abelacimab from Novartis in 2019, providing $250mn for clinical trials involving patients at high risk of cardiovascular problems. Novartis kept a minority stake in the company and will now pay $925mn upfront to buy the remainder, with other potential payments depending on future milestones.
David Soergel, global head of Novartis’ cardiovascular, renal, and metabolism development unit, said that abelacimab was a “potential first-in-class medicine, which promises to be an effective and safer approach to preventing thrombosis and stroke than current standards of care”.
He added that it was time to bring the drug back into Novartis. “We are proud that this medicine originated at Novartis and have been impressed with the Anthos Therapeutics team’s expertise and dedication and with the great progress they have made on the programme.”
The exit is the largest sale of a majority-owned company for Blackstone Life Sciences, which is pioneering an unusual model of licensing drugs and funding clinical trials.
Dr Nicholas Galakatos, chair of Anthos’s board, and global head of Blackstone Life Sciences, said the transaction was an “affirmation” of the asset manager’s ownership strategy, “where we seek to find innovative products and build companies around them to meet unmet patient needs”.
Blackstone Life Sciences has partnered with other large pharmaceutical companies to share the risk of developing potential assets that are not top priorities. It has also struck royalty deals to help some smaller companies finish drug development.
In 2022, Blackstone announced a €300mn collaboration with French pharmaceutical company Sanofi to fund the development of a blood cancer treatment.
Last year, it said it would provide up to $750mn to fund US biotech Moderna’s development of a new vaccine for flu, based on the messengerRNA technology that it used to create its Covid-19 vaccine.
Fonte: FT
