Minutes ago, Roche announced the acquisition of Danish antisense
company Santaris for $250M in upfront cash and $200M in contingent
payment. Given that Santaris only has a
microRNA inhibitor for HCV in the clinical pipeline which many in the industry
believe is outdated given recent successes in the treatment of HCV, this purchase is a big vote of confidence by Roche in the RNA
Therapeutics platform.
This latest development comes after Roche struck a Huntington’s-based deal with ISIS Pharmaceuticals in April 2013 resulting in a development
candidate as revealed today by ISIS in its earnings report.
Roche was fortunate to get that deal, because ISIS was about to strike a muchbroader neurology deal with BiogenIdec, leaving it hungry for all those
other targets. Apparently, Roche was
happy with what it saw, also following a smaller deal with Santaris just in
January this year on undisclosed targets.
This deal flow is reminiscent of what Roche did in RNAi
Therapeutics in 2006/7. After Merck took out Sirna Therapeutics, Roche saw a need to partner with Alnylam
instead, at least this is how the narrative goes.
You can bet your house that Roche at one point or another
wanted to buy ISIS, but given its varied partnerships and general unwillingness
to sell itself had to settle with archrival Santaris (--> ongoing litigation which perhaps Roche is more able to settle on ISIS' terms). But, hey, maybe history is repeating itself and ISIS already signed itself
away to AstraZeneca and we will hear about it soon.
PS: for the stock junkies (I know there are many here), this news also bodes well for Marina Biotech given its highly similar chemistry to that of Santaris: LNA and CRN.
5 comments:
When unapproved drugs are the only hope
A movement has begun in several states to address the issue of access to experimental medicines. Called Right to Try, laws have been passed in Colorado, Missouri and Louisiana, and are slated to be on ballot in the fall in Arizona. They aim to facilitate patients' access to experimental medicines by eliminating the need to get the FDA's go-ahead, provided the compounds have been through the initial round of safety testing in phase 1 clinical trials.
"The current process is incredibly cumbersome for sick patients," Darcy Olsen, CEO of the Goldwater Institute, a conservative policy organization that designed the legislation, said in an interview. "The Right to Try laws make it so that as soon as a doctor tells a patient there is a promising drug for you, the patient can then go out right away to the company and seek that approval, and that's going to cut down on the time that patients have to wait enormously."
As Goldwater and other supporters lobby for Right to Try, Olsen said she expects that those laws will be in at least half the United States by this time next year.
‘Right to beg’
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101860676?
Dirk, despite your high praise for ISIS, do you not have any hopes for a bomb shell from ALNY in the next couple of days? Don't tell me ALNY is on the prohibited to speak about list.
Theory: Roche approached Isis, but Isis said it wasn't interested. So Roche buys Santaris to put pressure on Isis to sell because Santaris is challenging Isis' European patent for generation 2.5 chemistry. Roche steps in and is much more of a threat because it has more credibility than Santaris, especially in Europe. Plus Isis has a patent infringement suit against Santaris pending (although it is not clear how important those patents are to Isis).
There are sooooooo many skeletons in that Santaris closet... lawsuits, stolen IP, crap data, Roche will be doing a Merck in a few years time...
Well, would have been the same if they had bought ISIS - lawsuits, crap IP, manipulation of data.
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