Servier buys Day One for $2.5bn to bolster its rare cancer pipeline
French pharma giant Servier is spending US$2.5bn to snap up Day One Biopharmaceuticals, gaining a key approved drug for difficult childhood brain tumours along with several promising pipeline candidates.
Servier has agreed to acquire Day One Biopharmaceuticals for US$2.5bn in cash at US$21.50 per share – a 68% premium to the previous closing price. The deal is aimed at strengthening the France-based group’s position in rare oncology. It gives Servier Ojemda (tovorafenib), an oral, brain-penetrant, highly selective type II RAF kinase inhibitor designed to target a key enzyme in the MAPK signalling pathway. Ojemda has been approved in the US for paediatric low-grade glioma (pLGG) with BRAF alterations and has recently received a positive recommendation for approval for the same indication in the EU, where Ipsen holds licensing rights to the drug.
Tovorafenib complements Servier’s existing rare cancer platform, where the company has a range of compounds at different stages of development, most notably Servier’s VORANIGO (vorasidenib), which was approved by the FDA as a targeted treatment for Grade 2 IDH-mutant glioma in 2024. “This acquisition of Day One Biopharmaceuticals marks another decisive step in strengthening Servier’s position in rare oncology,” said Olivier Laureau, President of Servier.
Servier has recently accelerated its dealmaking in oncology. Just a few months ago, the French pharma group announced a collaboration with AI drug discovery company Insilico Medicine worth up to US$888m, aimed at discovering and developing oncology therapies using Insilico’s artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery platform and Servier’s cancer development expertise.
California, US-based biopharma company Day One was founded in 2018 by paediatric oncologist Samuel Blackman and venture capitalist Julie Grant. It went public in 2021 during a biotech market downturn, raising US$160m, though its shares had fallen 20% before the takeover was announced.
Servier is “the ideal home for our portfolio as part of Day One’s mission to bring medicines to patients of all ages with life-threatening diseases,” said Jeremy Bender, CEO of Day One.
The transaction is expected to close between April and June 2026.
Courtesy Luca Nagel, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Klinikum rechts der Isar, School of Medicine, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany