Johnson & Johnson has sold off its remaining stake in the Kenvue consumer products business it spun off last year. In a filing with the SEC today, J&J said it brought in $3.6 billion for general corporate purposes from the transaction. Johnson & Johnson brought in the cash on May 15 after it issued a…

Bruker this week announced it entered into a definitive acquisition agreement with NanoString Technologies. Under the agreement’s terms, Bruker will substantially acquire all of the assets and rights associated with NanoString’s business for approximately $392.6 million in cash and the assumption of certain liabilities. The transaction was approved under a court-supervised Chapter 11 sale process…

Vertex Pharmaceuticals recently announced it will acquire Alpine Immune Sciences for $4.9 billion in cash. The two companies signed a definitive agreement in which Vertex will buy the biotech company for $65 per share. The transaction was unanimously approved by both companies’ boards of directors and is anticipated to close later this year. Alpine is…

Kintara Therapeutics and TuHURA recently announced they entered into a definitive merger agreement. The agreement is an all-stock transaction that will form a company with the expertise and resources needed to advance a risk-diversified late-stage oncology pipeline. The transaction is expected to close in Q3 2024. Kintara Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company investigating REM-001 in…

ProMed Pharma this week announced it acquired SpineThera’s manufacturing capabilities with the option to license intellectual property. Under the terms of the acquisition, ProMed Pharma has the option to license SpineThera’s microsphere intellectual property, which it could sublicense to ProMed Pharma’s customers. The Plymouth, Minnesota-based contract manufacturer will also add biodegradable microparticle development and manufacturing…

In the first few weeks of 2024, oncology remained a central focus area for M&A deals. Two major acquisitions, Johnson & Johnson’s purchase of Ambrx Biopharma and Merck & Co.’s acquisition of Harpoon Therapeutics, both focus on the segment. The trend is long-standing and was also apparent in 2023, as E&Y has noted. Merck was…

Eli Lilly and Company has recently received its third FDA rejection for the year 2023. The most recent came for lebrikizumab, the company’s investigational treatment for atopic dermatitis. FDA made the decision following an inspection of a third-party contract manufacturing organization. The agency had no complaints concerning the clinical data, safety, or labeling of lebrikizumab,…

In recent years, Pfizer has emerged as the largest Big Pharma firm. In 2022, its revenue surpassed $100 billion for the first time. But even though the pandemic has cemented the company as a leading pharmaceutical powerhouse — with a healthy M&A appetite — it does not count among the upper echelon of public companies…

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has signed off on Amgen’s proposed $27.8 billion purchase of Horizon Therapeutics . The acquisition, one of the largest pharma deals in recent years, is set to close in the early fourth quarter of 2022. The agreement resolves an FTC lawsuit filed in May attempting to block the deal over…

The biopharma industry had a lull in job opening growth from late 2022 and into early 2023. At that time, some early stage companies struggled to secure funding, while larger firms adopted a more cautious posture, according to recent research from the global real-estate firm JLL. Madeline Holmes, a senior research analyst at the company,…