Jazz swings further into cancer with Chimerix takeover

Jazz Pharmaceuticals has reached an agreement to buy Nasdaq-listed Chimerix for around $935 million, adding a brain cancer drug that is heading for an FDA verdict in the summer.

The Irish and US pharma group is offering $8.55 per share in cash for Chimerix and its lead clinical asset dordaviprone (ONC201), which is being reviewed in the US as a treatment for recurrent H3 K27M-mutant diffuse glioma, a rare, high-grade brain tumour that most commonly affects children and young adults and currently has no FDA-approved therapies.

Patients with this form of high-grade glioma face a very difficult prognosis, with few treatment options beyond radiotherapy and palliative care. Disease relapse is virtually inevitable and, until now, no systemic therapy has proven effective for this disease, according to Chimerix.

Jazz's offer is a premium of more than 70% on Chimerix share price, which last closed at $4.96, but had rocketed to just below the offer price in pre-market trading at the time of writing.

Jazz and Chimerix said they expect the transaction to close in the second quarter of this year, ahead of the FDA's scheduled verdict on dordaviprone, which is due on or before 18th August.

Dordaviprone is also being studied in the ongoing phase 3 ACTION trial in newly diagnosed, non-recurrent H3 K27M-mutant diffuse glioma patients following radiation treatment. If positive, that study could make dordaviprone a treatment option in the front-line setting.

The drug is billed as a first-in-class therapy that activates stress responses in cancer cells and pushes them into programmed cell death (apoptosis). It acts on the mitochondrial protease ClpP and dopamine receptor D2 (DRD2) and has been shown to reverse molecular changes that arise as a result of H3 K27M mutations.

"Adding dordaviprone to our oncology R&D pipeline will further diversify our portfolio with a medicine that addresses a significant unmet need with no other FDA-approved therapies and limited treatment options for this patient population," said Jazz's chairman and chief executive, Bruce Cozadd.

"If approved, dordaviprone has the potential to rapidly become a standard of care for a rare oncology disease and also contribute durable revenue beginning in the near term," he added.

The decision to acquire Chimerix comes just a few months after Jazz claimed FDA approval for Ziihera (zanidatamab), its HER2-directed bispecific antibody, as a treatment for biliary tract cancer (BTC). The company is also developing Ziihera for HER2-positive breast and gastric cancers.

A year ago, Jazz also licensed a KRAS inhibitor programme from UK biotech Redx Pharma in a deal valued at up to $880 million.