Dive Brief:
- Incyte, a drugmaker with a heavy focus on blood diseases and cancers, plans to take control of an experimental medicine that could help control bleeding in a variety of disorders.
- Vega Therapeutics, a subsidiary of the “hub-and-spoke” biotech Star Therapeutics, has been developing this “VGA039” medicine primarily as a treatment for von Willebrand disease — the most common inherited bleeding disorder. Now, Incyte has agreed to buy Vega for $1.25 billion up front. Star would be eligible to receive as much as $750 million more if certain sales goals are eventually met.
- Patients with von Willebrand disease lack an important clotting protein, meaning that, when they suffer any kind of injury, the bleeding usually takes longer to stop. In severe cases, this bleeding can cause joint or organ damage and be life-threatening. Current preventative treatments include so-called factor replacement therapies given as intravenous infusions two to three times a week. VGA039, meanwhile, comes as a once-monthly, under-the-skin injection that patients can do themselves.
Dive Insight:
While Incyte markets more than half a dozen drugs, the bulk of its revenue comes from Jakafi, which blocks a couple kinds of “JAK” enzymes. The Food and Drug Administration has approved original Jakafi and, recently, an extended-release version as treatments for uncommon types of blood cancer along with graft-versus-host disease, a complication that can arise after a stem cell or bone marrow transplant.
Last year, the drug accounted for 71% of the nearly $4.4 billion in net product revenue Incyte recorded.
Yet, with the main patents protecting Jakafi set to expire over the next few years, Incyte and its freshly mined CEO Bill Meury are under mounting pressure to find assets that will define the company’s next chapter.
An industry veteran, Meury arrived at Incyte with a reputation for dealmaking. He was fresh off running Anthos Therapeutics, which sold to Novartis for nearly $1 billion. He also led Karuna Therapeutics through its $14 billion sale to Bristol Myers Squibb in 2023.
Under Meury, Incyte last month agreed to spend $120 million expanding a drug discovery pact with Genesis Molecular AI. And with the Vega deal, which is slated to close sometime between July and the end of September, the company gets a medicine that has progressed to late-stage testing.
“The transaction has all of the attributes we look for in business development opportunities,” Meury said in a statement. Not only is VGA039 a “first-in-class” therapy, it has “compelling early data, a manageable development path and the potential to become an important new growth driver.”
The drug “fits directly into our strategy of building a top-tier growth company for the future,” Meury added.
Incyte shares barely shifted on the acquisition. They were down a little less than 1%, to roughly $101.50, in late Monday morning trading.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that up to 1% of the general population has von Willebrand disease. Incyte, citing “data on file,” approximates that 135,000 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with the disorder.
