Date: 2015-09-16
Type of information: Company acquisition
Acquired company: Dezima Pharma (The Netherlands)
Acquiring company: Amgen (USA - CA)
Amount: up to $1.25 billion
Terms: * On September 16, 2015, Amgen and Dezima Pharma announced that the companies have entered into a definitive acquisition agreement under which Amgen will acquire Dezima, a privately-held, Netherlands -based biotechnology company focused on developing innovative treatments for dyslipidemia. Dezima shareholders have approved the agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Amgen will pay $300 million in cash at closing and up to $1.25 billion in additional payments if certain development and sales milestones are achieved. Low single-digit royalties will be paid on net product sales above a certain threshold. The agreement is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year. Following the completion of the transaction, Dezima Pharma, which originally licensed rights to TA-8995 from Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC), will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Amgen . MTPC will receive from Dezima a portion of the upfront payment, future development and sales milestone payments, and royalties on net product sales if a certain threshold is reached. MTPC will also retain development and commercialization rights to TA-8995 in certain territories in Asia , including Japan .
Details: Amgen has recently launched Repatha™ (evolocumab) and Corlanor® (ivabradine). This acquisition will strenghten Amgen\'s cardiovascular portfolio with a late-stage, oral CETP inhibitor. Dezima\'s lead molecule is TA-8995, an oral, once-daily cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) inhibitor. In a Phase 2b clinical trial for dyslipidemia, TA-8995 reduced low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) by 45 to 48 percent compared to baseline. LDL-C reduction was consistent when TA-8995 was administered as monotherapy or in combination with statins. The most common adverse events were nasopharyngitis and headache. Dezima Pharma was founded in 2012 by John Kastelein , professor of medicine at the Department of Vascular Medicine at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands , and financed by Forbion Capital Partners , BioGeneration Ventures and New Science Ventures , and a EUR 5m loan (Innovation Credit) from the Dutch government through RVO, an agency of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs , to develop novel products to treat dyslipidemic patients suffering from cardiovascular disease. TA-8995 is a CETP inhibitor. The company has a Scientific Advisory Board including world-leading experts in the dyslipidemia space such as Dr. Philip Barter , professor at The Heart Research Institute , Sydney, Australia , and Dr. Bryan Brewer , senior research consultant of Lipoprotein and Atherosclerosis Research at the Medstar Research Institute , Washington, D.C.
Related: Cardiovascular diseases Metabolic diseases
