Closed and Collaborative: Mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships in June 2024

Welcome to a new pharmaphorum round-up. These monthly gleanings of industry mergers and acquisitions, and also partnerships, will aim to provide an overview of what’s happening when it comes to life sciences companies coming together.

In this inaugural edition of Closed and Collaborative, June’s announcements revealed ZS’ acquisition of Digital Additive, a Salesforce digital marketing agency for building personalised marketing campaigns. The acquisition will allow ZS – a global management consulting and technology firm founded in 1983, with more than 13,000 employees in 35 offices worldwide – to deliver more value to its customers through AI-driven customer engagement and digital marketing capabilities, including digital data and analytics, customer orchestration, and marketing activation. Digital Additive, which has worked with multiple Fortune 1000 companies, was founded in 2012 to help clients move beyond one-size-fits-all marketing programmes and reach customers at a one-to-one level.

We also learned that LucidHealth, a broad network of community-based radiology practices employing over 300 physicians, finalised a partnership agreement with Red AI Omni Impressions, an AI solution improving radiology report dictation and accelerate interpretations. The solution's deployment began with Radiology Associates of the Fox Valley in Neenah, Wisconsin, the first practice to utilise the tool earlier this year. Three more LucidHealth practices in the state are intended to follow, in addition to practices spanning Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and Nevada, and LucidHealth's teleradiology service, LucidSolutionsTM, will also incorporate Rad AI Omni Impressions for more than 70 remote-based providers.

In terms of other closed acquisitional deals, back in June Rosemont Pharmaceuticals – a leading developer, manufacturer, and distributor of liquid medicines for over 50 years – acquired Pharma-Data SA, a privately owned R&D organisation based in Lavrion, Greece, which specialises in development of value-added medicinal drug products for Europe and the US. This acquisition complements Rosemont’s already extensive in-house product development capability and improves the ability to develop other dosage forms and modified release oral liquids. Indeed, as of 2024, Rosemont has a portfolio of over 130 oral liquid medicines across a range of therapeutic areas, including over 100 licensed products in 27 international markets.

In the same month, Syncona, a life science investor focused on creating, building, and scaling global leaders in life sciences, announced that Freeline Therapeutics completed an acquisition of SwanBio Therapeutics to create a new company, Spur Therapeutics, combining two of Syncona’s clinical-stage portfolio companies and strengthening Spur’s growing focus on CNS diseases. Spur is now progressing two potentially first-in-class gene therapy assets through clinical trials and advancing a pipeline that moves beyond rare diseases into more prevalent conditions, starting with Parkinson’s disease. The combined business will be led by Freeline’s management team, including CEO Michael Parini, and as part of the transaction, SwanBio executive chair and Syncona executive partner John Tsai will join the Board of Spur. The acquisition has taken place at the portfolio companies’ holding valuations, resulting in a combined valuation of approximately £104.7 million. Meanwhile, Syncona has committed a further £40 million to Spur to support the development of its expanded pipeline.

Another acquisition to come to light in June was CatSci’s strategic purchase of Reach Separations. Headquartered in the UK, and with laboratories in both the UK and France, Reach Separations specialises in chromatography for the analysis and purification of chiral and achiral therapeutics. The acquisition will allow CatSci to offer end-to-end separation science support from discovery to manufacture, enhancing their analytical capabilities and expanding their expertise in chromatography. The move, supported by Keensight Capital, also strengthens CatSci's position in solving complex analytical problems, particularly for emerging therapeutics like oligonucleotides, TACs, and glues, as well as enhancing its Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls (CMC) capabilities.

Also in June, AbbVie completed the acquisition of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Celsius Therapeutics, a privately held biotechnology company pioneering new therapies for patients with inflammatory disease. Celsius' lead investigational asset CEL383 is a potential first-in-class anti-Triggering Receptor Expressed on Myeloid Cells 1 (TREM1) antibody for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Under the terms of the agreement, AbbVie – advised by Covington & Burling LLP – acquired all outstanding Celsius equity for $250 million in cash, subject to certain customary adjustments. The company’s mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow.

Finally, Progyny – a transformative fertility, family building, and women’s health benefits solution – announced its acquisition of Berlin-based Apryl, a fertility benefits platform founded in 2019. The acquisition enhances Progyny’s guided, concierge support that enables employees in over 100 countries around the world to navigate the complexities of fertility and family building care. Headquartered in New York City, Progyny has been recognised for its leadership and growth as a TIME100 Most Influential Company, CNBC Disruptor 50, Modern Healthcare's Best Places to Work in Healthcare, Forbes' Best Employers, and Financial Times Fastest Growing Companies, Inc. 5000, Inc. Power Partners, and Crain's Fast 50 for NYC.

And on the subject of family building and women’s health, if you missed the June pharmaphorum podcast on the role of the vaginal microbiome in fertility with Johan van Hylckama Vlieg, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Freya Biosciences, then be sure to catch up here.