BioCentury
ARTICLE | Finance

Monetizing M&A

How Sosei monetized its acquisition of Heptares

April 11, 2016 7:00 AM UTC

In just over a year, Sosei Group Corp. (Tokyo:4565) has nearly got back the $180 million in upfront cash it shelled out to buy Heptares Therapeutics Ltd. based on upfront payments and equity investments from a quartet of pharma partners. The largest deal came last week when Allergan plc (NYSE:AGN) paid Heptares $125 million up front for rights to a portfolio of muscarinic agonists to treat neurological disorders including Alzheimer's disease.

In August, the GPCR company granted AstraZeneca plc (LSE:AZN; NYSE:AZN) an exclusive worldwide license to HTL1071, an adenosine A2A receptor (ADORA2A) inhibitor in preclinical development for cancer. Heptares announced two more deals in November - a migraine partnership with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE:TEVA) and a GPCR discovery deal with Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE)...