Roivant Invests $200 Million in Immunovant to Advance Autoimmune Disorder Drug Candidate
02 Aug 2021
AntibodyAcquisition
Roivant Sciences has funneled $200 million into clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company Immunovant. The financing will be used to advance the company’s IMVT-1401 candidate across several different autoimmune disorder indications.
Following the financing announcement, Immunovant shares in premarket trading were 27% lower after ending at $10.46 on Friday.
The new funding was obtained by Immunovant after Roivant Sciences purchased 17,021,276 shares in the company’s common stock at $11.75 per share, a move approved by an Immunovant director committee.
Roivant launched Immunovant back in 2018, followed by China-based startup Sinovant Sciences. Immunovant was launched specifically for the purpose of developing treatment candidates for autoimmune disorders. At time of the launch, Roivant said Immunovant would be committed to centering its focus on RVT-1401, now known as IMVT-1401, a fully human monoclonal antibody designed to target the neonatal Fc receptor.
Giving effect to the funding from Roivant provides Immunovant a pro forma cash balance of up to $600 million. In turn, Roivant increased its ownership stake in the company from a start of 57.5% to 63.8%.
“We are excited to announce this significant investment by Roivant, which will expedite our development of IMVT-1401 for a wide range of autoimmune disorders,” said Immunovant’s chief executive officer, Dr. Peter Salzmann, in a statement. “Over the next 12 months, we plan to initiate a pivotal trial for myasthenia gravis, resume our trials in WAIHA and TED and initiate at least two additional clinical studies, including another pivotal trial in 2022.”
Roivant Sciences’ CEO, Matthew Gline, explained that the two companies have explored several different potential transactions over recent months. One of these possible transactions included an acquisition by Roivant of the minority interest in Immunovant. Ultimately, however, the two companies agreed on the $200 million strategic investment to further support the development of IMVT-1401.
“We are incredibly excited about the prospects for IMVT-1401, and we are eager to support Immunovant through this investment,” said Gline. “We look forward to continuing to work closely with Dr. Salzmann and the Immunovant management team to help develop IMVT-1401 to maximize benefit for patients with high levels of unmet medical need.”
Immunovant announced in first quarter financial and corporate updates for 2021 that a program-wide data review showed IMVT-1401 may have “a broader therapeutic window than previously anticipated and that lipid elevations are predictable, manageable, and appear to be driven by reductions in albumin,” a reduction that was reversible upon cessation of the agent. The company says it plans to launch IMVT-1401 in a pivotal trial later this year or early 2022 in myasthenia gravis.
In February, Roivant acquired Silicon Therapeutics for $450 million, a deal that includes potential regulatory and commercial milestones. The acquisition will lend Silicon’s artificial intelligence platform to complement Roivant’s targeted protein degradation system to enable improved drug design through a combination of computational physics and machine learning-based approaches.
Roivant’s Datavant, a San Francisco-based company focused on health data-sharing technology, recently merged with Ciox Health, another data network company, under a $7 billion transaction deal. The merger was designed to create a combined company, branded “Datavant,” that will be the country’s largest secure and neutral health data ecosystem. The combined company will work toward connecting patients, providers, payers, health data analytics, government agencies, life sciences companies and patient applications for secure and neutral exchange of patient data.
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