Ipsen's M&A team strikes again, adding Memo in $700m deal

In its second acquisition of the week, Ipsen will take control of Memo Therapeutics and a first-in-class drug for BK polyomavirus, which can cause serious complications in some transplant patients.

The French pharma group will pay €200 million ($228 million) to shareholders in the Swiss biotech on the closing of the deal, which is due in the third quarter of this year, and another €500 million or so if the antibody – called potravitug – meets development, regulatory approval, and sales-based targets.

The new acquisition comes as the ink is barely dry on Ipsen's larger $1.75 billion play for US cancer biotech Kartos Therapeutics, which was announced on Monday and included an upfront payment of $450 million. That was the latest in a string of pipeline-building deals for Ipsen in the last couple of years across its core therapeutic categories of oncology, neurology, and rare diseases.

The Memo deal falls into the latter camp as, while the BK polyomavirus is common, it usually remains inactive in the body and only causes problems in people with a weakened immune system, including kidney transplant recipients taking anti-rejection medications.

Around a third of kidney transplant patients will show high levels of the virus in the blood within the first year of their procedure, placing them at risk of BK polyomavirus-associated nephropathy (BKPyVAN), which can lead to transplant failure.

Potravitug, which targets a capsid protein (VP1) in the virus, is in the phase 2, placebo-controlled SAFE KIDNEY II trial in kidney transplant recipients, which has already revealed that the antibody can achieve dramatic reductions in BK polyomavirus levels in the blood and histological improvements in BKPyVAN, a condition with no approved treatments.

Around a quarter (24.4%) of potravitug-treated patients saw their viral levels reduce to undetectable levels after treatment, compared to 13% of the placebo group, while a 100-fold fall was seen in 40.3% and 24.7% of patients, respectively, at 38 weeks.

Buoyed by the encouraging results, Memo is planning to start a phase 3 trial – SAFE KIDNEY III – later this year.

BKPyVAN is a significant clinical challenge in kidney transplant recipients, according to Darshana Dadhania of Weill Cornell Medicine, medical director of the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Programme and assistant director of the Immunogenetics and Histocompatibility Lab.

"With no approved targeted treatment, clinicians are forced to reduce immunosuppressive therapy, which increases the risk of graft rejection and graft loss," she said. "Given the frequency and serious consequences of BK virus reactivation, there remains an urgent need for effective therapy that avoids this trade-off."

Over 100,000 kidney transplants are performed each year worldwide, including more than 28,000 in the US, with approximately 90,000 patients on the waiting list.