J&J swoops on cancer biotech Halda with $3bn takeover deal
Halda Therapeutics' president and chief executive, Christian Schade.
Johnson & Johnson has added to the flurry of M&A deals in pharma with an agreement to buy US biotech Halda Therapeutics and its RIPTAC platform for generating small-molecule cancer drugs.
J&J said it will pay $3.05 billion to gain control of Halda, and expects the deal to close in the next few months.
RIPTACs – or regulated induced proximity targeting chimaeras, in full - are bifunctional, oral drug candidates designed to simultaneously bind to a tumour-specific protein on one end and to an effector protein on the other. When both proteins are present, they form a "trimeric complex" with the RIPTAC that delivers a 'hold and kill' blow to the malignant cell.
The platform has already yielded one clinical-stage candidate, HLD-0915, which showed signs of activity in a clinical trial involving patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) last month.
The first data from the phase 1/2 trial showed preliminary signs of anti-tumour activity, including reductions in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA), as well as shrinking tumours. It has been given fast-track status by the FDA.
In a statement, J&J said that HLD-0915 "has the potential to transform patient outcomes with its novel precision cancer cell-killing approach that can overcome mechanisms of resistance to treatment."
It also pointed to the potential of Halda's RIPTAC platform in other tumour types, with earlier-stage candidates in development for breast, lung, and other cancers, as well as applications beyond oncology.
In J&J's third-quarter results update, chief executive Joaquin Duato said that the company "does not need large M&A to deliver in the high end of our growth targets, [but is] going to be looking at opportunities as we always do […] to fuel our pipeline and our portfolio."
J&J will be hoping that the acquisition goes through smoothly, given that there has been a return to bidding wars in pharma M&A of late, Pfizer eventually seeing off a challenge from Novo Nordisk for obesity drug developer Metsera, and Alkermes and Lundbeck now fighting over narcolepsy specialist Avadel Pharma.
"Through this transaction, we will continue to rapidly develop this promising programme for patients with prostate cancer and advance Halda's innovative pipeline from its RIPTAC platform to address a range of diseases," said the biotech's president and chief executive, Christian Schade.
