AstraZeneca adds another rare disease drug in $800M buyout of startup Amolyt
14 Mar 2024
AcquisitionPhase 3Gene Therapy
Dive Brief:
AstraZeneca is bolstering its rare disease division with the purchase of Amolyt Pharma, an endocrine disease specialist backed by Novo Holdings.
Under the deal announced Thursday, AstraZeneca will pay Amolyt shareholders $800 million in cash up front, with the potential for another $250 million for reaching a specific regulatory milestone. The companies expect the transaction to close in the third quarter.
For AstraZeneca, the jewel of the acquisition is eneboparatide, a drug in Phase 3 testing to treat patients with hypoparathyroidism. The disease, which mostly affects women, is caused by a deficiency in parathyroid production that lowers calcium in the blood and can lead to debilitating symptoms including kidney disease. It affects about 115,000 people in the U.S.
Dive Insight:
The $39 billion acquisition of Alexion three years ago instantly transformed AstraZeneca into a major player in rare diseases. Since then, the U.K. drugmaker has been selectively picking up additional assets.
In September 2021, the company exercised an option to buy the rest of rare disease drugmaker Caelum Biosciences for $150 million. A few months later, AstraZeneca struck two deals in transthyretin amyloidosis, paying $30 million to Switzerland’s Neurimmune for rights to an experimental therapy and inking a development pact with Ionis Pharmaceuticals for a drug that won approval in late 2023.
AstraZeneca is also using its foothold in rare diseases to make forays into genetic medicine, acquiring gene-editing specialist LogicBio Therapeutics and scooping up Pfizer’s early gene therapy work for as much as $1 billion. And last year, the company announced plans to work with Quell Therapeutics to develop cell-based treatments for autoimmune diseases.
Amolyt has moved from a startup with preclinical assets to a Phase 3 company in less than five years. Its largest investor is Novo Holdings, the controlling shareholder of both Novo Nordisk and Novozymes. Owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Novo Holdings co-led the Series A financing for Amolyt in 2019 and added to its investment with Series B and Series C funding rounds.
In addition to eneboparatide, Amolyt has an experimental drug called AZP-3813 designed as a potential treatment for acromegaly, which occurs when the body makes too much growth hormone.
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