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Servier to bag Shire's cancer business

Cancer cell and T cell, © fotolia.com/Science RF


by tg

French Servier boosts its cancer drug portfolio acquiring Shire plc’s oncology pipeline, which earned about US$260m last year, for US$2.4bn in cash. 

The deal includes the  acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) drug pegaspargase (Oncaspar) and late stage ALL candidate drug calaspargase pegol plus the ex-US rights fort a nano-formulation of the chemotherapeutic irinotecan (Onivyde). Servier will also receive the rights on several licenced drug candidates including CAR-T cells developed by Precision Biosciences and checkpoint modulators co-developed with Symphogen vs several targets.

Shire’s divestment comes at a time where Japan’s oncology-focussed drugmaker considers to acquire the London-based  orphan drug and neurology specialist, who want to split both parts of the company. However, Deutsche Bank analysts said this was unlikely to be a deal breaker. A Takeda spokesman declined to comment. Under UK takeover regulations, Takeda has until April 25 to announce whether or not it will bid for Shire, which has a market value of about US$47bn.

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