UPDATED: Amylin shares rocket up on report of $3.5B buyout offer by Bristol-Myers

Posted under Amylin pharmaceuticals, Blog, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bydureon, Byetta, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Pharmaceuticals, Startups, Universities, Victoza, Videos by John Carroll

Shares of Amylin Pharmaceuticals ($AMLN) rocketed up 45% this morning, fueled by a report by Bloomberg that the Bydureon developer had turned a cold shoulder to a $22 per share buyout offer from Bristol-Myers Squibb ($BMY), putting the value on this new potential pearl at $3.5 billion.

Amylin has had an eventful schedule over the past year. First it sued its longtime partner Eli Lilly ($LLY) after Lilly forged a marketing pact with rival Boehringer, then it executed an expensive divorce from the pharma giant. Soon after, the FDA delivered on a long-awaited approval for Bydureon, the once-weekly successor to the Byetta franchise. Now Meg Tirrell and Jeffrey McCracken, quoting sources close to the deal, report that Amylin rejected Bristol-Myers offer to pay a 43% premium to buy the company--a deal that would register as the largest in a string of 19 BMS acquisitions over the past five years.

As Bloomberg notes, Amylin has been seeing its revenue from Byetta shrink as Novo's ($NVO) Victoza muscled into its market share. And it's been looking for a global partner who can step into Eli Lilly's shoes outside the U.S. But none of that persuaded Amylin to warm up to Bristol-Myers' offer. BMS hasn't been back in touch since it was rejected by Amylin.

Amylin struck a $1.6 billion deal to end its relationship with Lilly. That included a $250 million upfront and a $1.2 billion share of the Bydureon revenue. The FDA's approval came soon after the two companies split up.

News of the $3.5 billion bid quickly seized the attention of Wall Street analysts, who began to debate just what Amylin is worth. Its value has a lot to do with its prospects for Bydureon, of course, and as Adam Feuerstein at TheStreet notes, if the board is turning down a $22 offer, they must have a strong belief that they can go on to register blockbuster sales. But if Bristol can't prevail, adds Feuerstein, the likes of Takeda, GlaxosmithKline and AstraZeneca just might step in.

- here's the story from Bloomberg
- here's the report from TheStreet

Special Report: Bydureon - 15 top blockbuster contenders

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Forma scores another Big Pharma deal in $700M J&J cancer pact

Posted under Blog, Boehringer Ingelheim, Companies, Diagnostics, Forma Therapeutics, Funding, Janssen, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Novartis, Pharmaceuticals, Startups, Universities, Videos by John Carroll

Just days after inking an $815 million cancer drug discovery pact with Boehringer Ingelheim, Forma Therapeutics agreed to put its fast-growing small molecule ops to work for J&J's Janssen in a $700 million deal. This new pact, which focuses on tumor metabolism, also allows Forma to hang on to the North American commercial rights on one of the programs it develops--adding some long-term upside for the biotech. The announcement did not reveal how much Janssen is paying upfront.

"This collaboration will enable a broad chemical biology approach to understanding the unique biology underlying cancer metabolism," Kenneth Bair, Ph.D., senior vice president and head of research and development at Forma.

The partnership also marks another big step for Forma, a 2011 Fierce 15 company which has been rapidly building up a broad range of deals with biopharma companies as it hones its skills on protein-protein interactions, tumor metabolism and epigenetics. With new facilities in the Boston area and a relatively big discovery outfit in a staff of about 100, Forma CEO Steve Tregay has been laying a foundation for a biotech company which can rely on a steady stream of partnership dollars to pay the bills while offering some early returns to its investors.

"This collaboration with Janssen Biotech further strengthens our drug discovery capabilities and also allows us to look to the future with an opportunity to maintain North American rights, which is a key element of our strategy to create long-term shareholder value within Forma," said Tregay in today's release.  

You can expect more deals from Forma and Tregay, who specialized in pacts for Novartis ($NVS).

- here's the press release

Special Report: Forma Therapeutics - 2011 Fierce 15

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JPM kicks off with fevered focus on the next big biotech deal

Posted under Abbott Labs, Achillion, Biotech IPO, Blog, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, Hepatitis C, Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Inhibitex, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Merck, Mergers and Acquisitions, Novartis, Pharmaceuticals, Pharmasset, Roche, Startups, Universities, vertex, Videos by John Carroll

The news of the Bristol-Myers/Inhibitex deal couldn't have been better timed. With the biotech world converging on San Francisco today for the annual JP Morgan confab, there's nothing like a 10-figure deal to get everyone whipped up about the potential for making it big in drug development. And this year you can expect to hear plenty of discussion about another year where deal-making will be at the top of the agenda for the biopharma business.

So who's next? Ever since the $11 billion Pharmasset ($VRUS) buyout, tongues have been wagging about the next likely takeout. And now that Inihibitex ($INHX) has found a buyer and agreed to a price, Idenix ($IDIX) and Achillion have emerged as the next two biotechs most likely to find themselves asking for more at the bargaining table. Both developers helped feed the rumor mill today with some positive updates on their hep C programs.

Edward Tenthoff, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, has tapped Vertex ($VRTX), J&J ($JNJ), Merck ($MRK), Boehringer Ingelheim, Abbott ($ABT), Pfizer ($PFE) and Novartis ($NVS) as potential buyers, a list that is too long to be completely wrong. Brian Skorney would add Roche ($RHHBY) to the list of hep C bidders, which would help to further inflate any final price being paid for a remaining biotech player.

Bloomberg, which loves to feast on buyout rumors, helped prime the discussion pump in advance by speculating that a pair of big biotechs--Amgen ($AMGN) and Celgene ($CELG)--could make deal-making even hotter this year if they kick off a big round of buyouts to excite fretting investors about their future.

The problem is that the early-January JPM hype almost never lives up to the reality. The most exciting thing that could happen to biotech this year would be a big IPO for a drug developer with all its assets in the clinic. That kind of trend would really help inspire investors to sink cash into biotechnology. And there's no firm indication that this year will be all that different from the bleak reality of the past three years.  

- here's the story from Bloomberg   

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Fast-growing Forma grabs $815M cancer discovery deal with Boehringer

Posted under Blog, Boehringer Ingelheim, Cancer Drugs, Companies, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Diagnostics, epigenetics, Forma Therapeutics, Funding, Genentech, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Pharmaceuticals, small molecules, Startups, Universities, Videos by John Carroll

Forma Therapeutics has nabbed an $815 million deal--$65 million of that in an upfront payment and the rest in pre-commercial milestones--to direct its growing drug discovery engine to new small molecule cancer therapeutics for Boehringer Ingelheim.

The pact marks another coup for Forma, a 2011 Fierce 15 company which has built up an extensive R&D operation designed to serve up new programs to a hungry set of biopharma companies around the globe. In this case, Forma plans to focus on multiple oncology targets over a four-year period. And they've set out to crack some tough cancer cases.

Since getting set up, CEO Steve Tregay tells FierceBiotech, Forma has been building up its skills in tumor metabolism, protein-protein interactions and, more recently, epigenetics, allowing the R&D side of the business to approach a single target along multiple pathways. Forma has about 100 staffers now--a big group by biotech standards--and the company just completed a move into 45,000 square feet of space in Watertown.

For Tregay, who once worked deals for Novartis ($NVS), this new pact also marks the evolution of the company into more drug discovery work as it develops its own pipeline. "We'll screen over 30 targets this year," he notes, and the company is gaining a reputation for fast, efficient work with a range of pharma outfits that includes industry leaders like Genentech and Cubist.

The Genentech deal included some unusual terms, including a new approach to paying out the returns Forma gets from its partner to its investors. And Tregay says that this new deal also has some flexibility built into it in terms of how it can use the money.

- here's the press release

Special Report: Forma Therapeutics - 2011 Fierce 15

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