Servier buys into muscular dystrophy with potentially $2.7B deal

Dive Brief:

French pharmaceutical firm Servier has agreed to acquire the muscular dystrophy business of a Colorado-based biotechnology company in a deal that could be worth nearly $2.7 billion.
The main asset in the acquisition is sevasemten, an experimental, first-of-its-kind tablet designed to protect fragile muscles by inhibiting a protein that causes fast, powerful muscle contractions. The drug’s developer, Edgewise Therapeutics, has advanced it into mid-stage studies for Duchenne muscular dystrophy as well as pivotal testing for another rare disorder called Becker muscular dystrophy.
In a statement, Servier said this drug could make it a “global player with strong capabilities” in neuromuscular disorders. The company will pay Edgewise $1.55 billion in cash up front, and has offered as much as $1.1 billion more if certain regulatory and commercial goals are hit.

Dive Insight:

Servier has, for the past decade, been in what it describes as a state of “deep transformation.” While previously focused almost entirely on diseases that affect the heart, blood vessels and metabolic system, the company has broadened its lens to include oncology and, more recently, neurology.

To build a greater presence in those research areas, Servier has turned to dealmaking. It bought a potential treatment for Fragile X syndrome from Kaerus Biosciences in September. Then, in March, it announced the roughly $2.5 billion acquisition of cancer drugmaker Day One Biopharmaceuticals. That deal gave Servier a couple clinical-stage assets along with Ojemda, an approved medicine for certain hard-to-treat brain tumors that affect children.

Servier recorded 6.9 billion euros, or roughly $7.9 billion, in its most recently completed fiscal year, which stretched from October 2024 through September 2025. The company is on a mission — dubbed “Servier 2030” — to, by the start of the next decade, be a more innovative developer, have a “rich” pipeline and boast a product portfolio that generates at least 10 billion euros worth of revenue annually.

Olivier Laureau, Servier’s president, in that Monday statement said the Edgewise purchase “is a key step forward to achieve our Servier 2030 ambition in neurology,” as it provides the company with “a team of talented experts and a promising asset in muscular dystrophies.”

As for Edgewise, the deal not only brings a balance-sheet-strengthening infusion of cash, it also marks a turning point. The biotech said that, once the transaction completes, it will cement Edgewise as a cardiovascular-focused developer with a pipeline comprised of three core drugs.

The farthest along of those, “EDG-7500,” is in a mid-stage study where researchers are evaluating it as a treatment for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disease in which a thickening of the heart muscle makes pumping blood more difficult. Edgewise said one part of the study is on track to produce data by the end of June. Those results should inform the design of a Phase 3 study set to kick off sometime in the final three months of this year.

Egdewise believes its existing cash, plus the upfront proceeds from the Servier deal, will be able to fully fund EDG-7500 through development and its potential approval. They should also get a separate drug meant for a type of heart failure through “key value-inflection points.”

Edgewise shares were up almost 11%, to around $38 apiece, in late morning trading Monday.

According to RBC Capital Markets analyst Leonid Timashev, the sevasemten sale is a “prudent decision” for Edgewise, greatly improving the company’s cash position while allowing it to concentrate on a “highly promising” asset in EDG-7500.

While sevasemten had shown “striking data (particularly in Becker),” the drug was “not necessarily fully valued by [Wall] Street due to perceived risk and challenges in the space,” Timashev wrote in a note to clients.

Even so, sevasemten constituted a significant portion of Edgewise’s value. The RBC team was bullish on the drug, estimating peak annual sales of $2.2 billion. As such, the Servier deal “would most likely be fair value neutral if all milestones are reached,” Timashev noted.