Gen: Top 10 M & A targets in biopharmaceutical field in 2019

Just entering 2019, two major deals have taken place in the field of Biopharmaceutics: BMS's $74 billion acquisition of Xinji; Lilly's $8 billion acquisition of Loxo oncology Once again ignited the industry's expectations for the M & a boom in 2019 Some analysts pointed out that M & A transactions will continue to increase in 2019, in part because small biopharmaceutical companies are unsatisfactory in terms of their own commercialized products, and the drop in the market value of biopharmaceutical companies caused by the sharp fall in the share price at the end of last year Gen has been tracking acquisition targets in the biopharmaceutical sector in recent years and has accurately predicted a number of companies In the list of top 10 M & A targets in 2018, avexis (acquired by Novartis for $8.7 billion) and tesaro (acquired by GSK for $5.1 billion) were successfully predicted In 2017, only Juno (acquired by new base) was successfully predicted in the top 10 list Recently, Gen released the list of top 10 M & A targets in the field of Biopharmaceutics in 2019 The details are as follows: 1 Alexion alexion was founded in 1992 It is an American biopharmaceutical company focusing on the discovery, development and commercialization of new drugs for rare diseases Alexion made a splash last year with two pipeline construction deals: a planned $1.2 billion acquisition of syntimmune and a $637 million partnership with dicerna pharmaceuticals to discover and develop RNAi therapies for complement mediated diseases The company's lower 2018 earnings per share (EPS) investor guidance (between 8 cents per share loss and 26 cents per share gain) has once again triggered speculation among industry analysts that alexion is ripe for acquisition Given alexion's market value of $25 billion in 2018, it ranked 12th in the top 25 biotechnology companies in 2018 released by gen, and Ronny, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein, an investment bank in the United States Gal thinks alexion is a perfect acquisition target, which is neither too large nor too small It is a logical acquisition target for Amgen, because Amgen needs to extend and strengthen the pipeline, although the company is controlling the R & D cost under the pressure of shareholders Analyst BRET Jensen believes that another logical buyer for alexion is bio Marin, because both companies focus on the treatment of rare diseases It is worth mentioning that biomarin itself is one of the targets listed in this article BRET Jensen pointed out that alexion has a very popular drug, soliris, which has been approved to treat paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) and generalized myasthenia gravis (GMG) In addition, ultomiris, an upgraded version of soliris product developed by alexion, was approved by FDA in December 2018 The price of the drug (458000 US dollars) is lower than that of soliris (more than 500000 US dollars) Based on strong clinical data and differential characteristics, ultomiris will occupy the majority of PNH Market share after its launch, including PNH primary patients and treated PNH patients transferred from soliris to ultomiris 。 On December 10 last year, Zacks Investment & Research positioned three large pharmaceutical companies as potential buyers: Roche, Pfizer and Novartis 2 Alnylam is a leading enterprise in the field of RNAi therapy development Its drug onpattro was approved by the United States and the European Union in August 2018, becoming the first RNAi drug approved for marketing in the world In the third quarter of 2018, $5 million in revenue and 125 patient initiated treatment forms were generated With a net income of $11-12 million in the fourth quarter, about 550 patients worldwide received onpattro treatment, more than 200 of them in the United States (250 patient initiation forms submitted) and the European Union Alnylam's investors hope the company can use this performance to find buyers Barry Cohen, a market observer, thinks Sanofi may be a potential buyer of Alnylam Sanofi jianzan, a subsidiary of Sanofi, bought a $700 million stock of Alnylam in 2014 Kinjel Shah, an analyst at Zacks investment research, also said Sanofi was a potential acquirer In addition to onpattro, Alnylam has two late pipeline assets: givesiran, a potential therapeutic drug for acute porphyria (AHP), and inclisiran, a drug for hypercholesterolemia, developed in cooperation with the medicines company In September 2018, Alnylam published the positive and mid-term results of the givosiran phase III clinical study, ENVISION, showing a significant reduction in the urinary aminolevulinic acid, the biomarker of AHP Alnylam has disclosed plans to launch a rolling NDA submission and seek full approval based on the full results of the vision study in early 2019 As for inclisiran, the company said in October 2018 that the independent data monitoring committee recommended that the three phase III clinical studies of inclisiran continue to be carried out without any modification after the fourth plan review on safety and effectiveness 3 Founded in 1993, amarin is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland It focuses on developing innovative therapies to improve cardiovascular health In 2012, vascepa (eicosapentaenoic acid ethyl ester, EPA), the company's fish oil product, was approved by FDA as a dietary supplement to reduce triglyceride levels in adults with severe hypertriglyceridemia The company plans to submit a new drug supplement application in the United States by the end of the first quarter of 2019, expanding the label of vascepa to reflect its cardioprotection, as shown in the results of the phase III clinical study, reduce-it On September 24 last year, amarin announced the very positive top line results of reduce-it at the 2018 American Heart Association Science Conference, followed by additional test data on November 10 Amarin said vascepa reached the primary end point in the reduce-it study, reducing the relative risk of the first major adverse cardiovascular event by 25%; at the same time, vascepa also reached the key secondary end point, including reducing the risk of cardiovascular death by 20%, reducing the combined relative risk of cardiovascular death, non fatal heart attack and non fatal stroke by 26% On the day of the data, amarin's share price soared to $12.40 from $2.99 the day before Street insider reported on January 10 that Pfizer was preparing to acquire amarin, but the two companies did not comment On October 16 last year, Luke Lango, founder of L & F capital management, an investment fund, pointed out that while the market value of amarin is about $6 billion, its potential to expand its treatment population could disrupt markets estimated to be over $500 billion 4 Biomarin was founded in 1996, focusing on the research and development of new drugs in the field of rare diseases Industry observers have long regarded biomarin as a takeover target Biomarin has been on the list since Gen compiled the list of such M & A targets in 2013, and this year's speculation about the company's acquisition has not cooled At JPM 2019, Jean Jacques bienaim é, chairman and CEO of biomarin, highlighted this year's development and regulatory milestones Among them, in the second half of 2019, an application for permission of biological products of valoctocogene roxaparvovec (Val Rox, bmn270) gene therapy for hemophilia A will be submitted through accelerated approval, which will be based on a phase III study of 130 patients in the group expected to be completed in the middle of 2019 In addition, biomarin hopes to obtain the top line results of the phase III clinical study of vossoritede in the treatment of achondroplasia children by the end of the year Biomarin also hopes that the European Commission will approve palynziq ® (peghaliase) injection for the treatment of phenylketonuria (PKU) patients aged 16 and over Comments from the European Drug Administration's human medicinal products committee are expected to be released in the first quarter If approved, it is expected to increase the company's revenue by $70 million to $100 million in 2019 In the absence of guidance for 2019, biomarin reiterated its forecast for 2018, with sales expected to reach US $1.47-1.53 billion, up 12-16.5% from 2017, and net loss between us $115-165 million, which also explains why the company remains the acquisition target Biomarin said the company's total revenue from seven currently approved products will reach $2 billion by 2020 5 Clovis oncology, founded in 2009, focuses on the development and commercialization of new anticancer drugs GSK's $5.1 billion acquisition of tesaro in early December led biotechnology stock watchers to speculate that other PARP inhibitor developers might soon find buyers Clovis is one of them, and activist shareholder armistice capital has reached out to management to urge the company to look for buyers, Bloomberg reported Armistice capital revealed in a regulatory filing on November 5 that it has become Clovis's second largest shareholder, with a 9.8% stake, increasing its ownership to 5.15 million shares by investing $116.5 million Although Clovis's PARP inhibitor rubraca's product revenue increased from $38.5 million a year ago to $65 million in the first quarter to the third quarter of 2018, it lagged behind its competitors For example, tesaro's PARP inhibitor zejula accumulated $169 million in sales in the first nine months of last year, while lynparza generated $438 million in sales for AstraZeneca in the first nine months and a profit share of $126 million for its partner MSD "With the recent completion of GSK's acquisition of tesaro, Clovis will become the only independent PARP developer, and we believe that this situation will make Clovis the most likely target for acquisition in 2019," Gabelli analyst Jing he said in a report to investors In addition, Jing he predicted three potential buyers most interested in Clovis: BMS, Sanofi and Roche One potential attraction for Clovis for buyers is the preliminary strong efficacy data obtained by rubraca in the treatment of triton2 in the phase II study of BRCA mutation positive advanced prostate cancer: in 25 patients with RECIST / pcwg3 assessable with a BRCA1 / 2 gene change, the objective remission rate of rubraca treatment is 44% (n = 11 / 25), and the median remission duration of these patients has not yet reached In addition, the response rate of prostate cancer antigen was 51.1% (n = 23 / 45) On January 3 this year, BMSs announced that it would purchase Xinji for a total of US $74 billion in cash and stock, which will enable the company to acquire a number of pipeline assets with great potential in immunology, inflammation, especially oncology The blockbuster deal sparked rumours from market watchers that many other big biotech companies, notably Gilead science, would also be ready to be acquired Hartaj Singh, an Oppenheimer fund analyst, raised his shares to "outperform the market." Hartaj Singh set a target price of $85, according to Barron, a financial website (on the day BMS celgene announced, Geely shares closed at $65.25) Hartaj Singh cites expectations for Daniel O'Day, who will become Geely's chairman and chief executive on March 1, to lead the company to better results later this year, revitalize sales channels and generate strong clinical data, from which it can be predicted: "Geely is ready to find its magic." Gilead is currently waiting for additional positive data from the Jak1 inhibitor filgotinib, which was jointly developed with Galapagos and reached the primary end point in finch2, a phase III clinical study for adults with moderate to severe active rheumatoid arthritis who had previously received inadequate or intolerant response to biological agents, published last September Gilead also plans to release the results of its phase II and phase III studies of selonerstib, a candidate drug for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, in the first half of this year Michael Yee, an analyst at RBC Capital, added Gilead to a list of M & A candidates, including alexion