Bristol-Myers Buys Swedish Firm With Immunotherapy Treatment

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. said Tuesday that it had acquired Sweden-based Cormorant Pharmaceuticals for up to $520 million, the drugmaker's latest deal involving products that harness the immune system to attack cancerous tumors.

Under the deal, Bristol-Myers will pay $95 million in upfront and near-term payments to the privately held company, plus up to $425 million in possible additional milestone payments.

Cormorant develops therapies for cancer and rare diseases. With the acquisition, Bristol-Myers said it would gain the rights to Cormorant's immunotherapy treatment, HuMax-IL8.

The treatment targets a protein in many solid tumors that suppresses the immune system and helps tumors grow. Cormorant acquired the rights to HuMax-IL8 from Genmab A/S in 2012 under an exclusive license agreement.

Bristol's Yervoy, the first of the new wave of immunotherapies, was approved in 2011 to treat advanced skin cancer. It was followed in 2014 by Opdivo, which is now approved to treat lung and skin cancer. Last year, Bristol reported $2.1 billion in global sales from the two drugs.

Bristol said it would look to combine the HuMax-IL8 antibody program with other existing cancer medicines.

"We believe combination therapy will be foundational to delivering the potential for long-term survival for patients," said Bristol-Myers Chief Scientific Officer Francis Cuss.

Combination therapy happens when patients receive combinations of multiple drugs that may prove to be more effective than one or two drugs—a promising strategy according to cancer researchers. But, combining drugs means combining the prices of those drugs, and higher overall treatment costs for patients and health insurers.

High prices for new cancer drugs and higher prices for older cancer drugs have received criticism from doctors, patients and insurers, who say the costs are straining budgets and often seem unrelated to how well the drugs work. The spread of combination treatments threatens to heighten this tension.

Bristol-Myers stock has risen 12% over the past three months. Shares rose 0.1% premarket to $73.83.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 05, 2016 09:05 ET (13:05 GMT)

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