Key Takeaways

The JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, which is being held in San Francisco this year, has been much more active than last year. Among some of the top news at the conference were M&A deal announcements by J&J JNJ, Eli Lilly LLY and GSK GSK.

While J&J announced a big deal to acquire neuroscience company Intra-Cellular Therapies ITCI, Lilly and GSK announced smaller deals.

J&J Offers to Buy ITCI for $14B

The drug and medical devices giant entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Intra-Cellular Therapies for $132.00 per share or approximately $14.6 billion. The offer price represents a premium of almost 40% to ITCI’s closing price on Friday.

The acquisition will add Intra-Cellular Therapies’ only approved drug, Caplyta, for the treatment of bipolar I and II depression and schizophrenia, to J&J’s neuroscience pipeline. ITCI has also filed a supplemental new drug application (sNDA) to the FDA seeking approval of Caplyta as an adjunctive treatment for major depressive disorder. Additional phase III studies are ongoing on Caplyta in other mental health disorders.

The acquisition will also add Intra-cellular Therapeutics’ other CNS candidates, including ITI-1284, being developed in phase II for generalized anxiety disorder and Alzheimer’s disease-related psychosis and agitation, to JNJ’s portfolio.

Lilly to Buy Scorpion’s PI3Kα Inhibitor for Breast Cancer

Eli Lilly announced that it is buying private biotech Scorpion Therapeutics’ novel mutant-selective PI3Kα inhibitor, STX-478, being developed in a phase I/II study for breast cancer and other advanced solid tumors. The acquisition will stregthen Lilly’s oncology pipeline. The total deal value is approximately $2.5 billion in cash, which includes an upfront payment and subsequent potential milestone payments.

Lilly is taking the STX-478 program and spinning it off into a new independent company. Scorpion’s current shareholders will own the new company, and Lilly will have a minority stake.

GSK Targets Gastrointestinal Cancers With IDRx Acquisition

GSK, meanwhile, announced an agreement to acquire private biotech IDRx, which makes precision therapeutics for treating gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). IDRx’s key pipeline candidate is IDRX-42, a highly selective KIT tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), which has shown the potential to address all key KIT mutations in GIST that drive tumor growth. For the deal, GSK will make an upfront payment of $1 billion and $150 million in a potential regulatory milestone payment in cash.