May 8 Company Quick Takes: Takeda selling Shire eye drug to Novartis in $3.4B deal; plus BioNTech, Third Rock’s Thrive and more

Takeda off-loads Xiidra, TachoSil
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Tokyo:4502; NYSE:TAK) will sell Xiidra lifitegrast to Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; SIX:NOVN) for $3.4 billion up front, plus $1.9 billion in milestones. Takeda said divesting the dry eye drug, which it gained via its $62 billion takeout of Shire plc, will allow it to focus on its core business areas of gastroenterology, rare diseases, plasma-derived therapies, oncology and neuroscience. Takeda Chief Medical and Scientific Officer Andrew Plump told BioCentury last year that the pharma had been looking at either building Shire's ophthalmology portfolio into its strategy or spinning them out (see "Takeda Hits the Gas").

Takeda also is selling its TachoSil fibrin sealant patch to the Ethicon Inc. medical device unit of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) for about $400 million up front...