The prettiest girl at the ball, Receptos (RCPT), went home with a handsome suitor this week. Celgene (CELG) is paying $7.2 billion, or $232 per share, to acquire Receptos and its lead drug candidate ozanimod, which is already in a number of phase III auto-immune disorder trials. (Read more.) Analysts model peak sales for the drug of $5 to 6 billion, not including some yet untested indications.
Receptos was already a hot commodity. Ozanimod was one of only a few late-stage, un-partnered assets in the world of pharma, and investors have been willing to pay up for these acquisition candidates all year. The question for many investors wasn’t if Receptos would get bought, but when.
That leads us to Anacor Pharmaceuticals (ANAC), which this week said that two phase III studies of crisabarole were complete successfully, with the experimental treatment significantly outperforming a placebo in patients with mild or moderate atopic dermatitis. That indication alone, also known as eczema, could be a $1 billion opportunity says the company, and proof of concept studies in psoriasis are underway, and one other asset already approved (Kerydin).
Where crisabarole topical ointment falls in the landscape of existing treatments, primarily cheap steroids, remains to be seen, but investors have been generous anyway. At a $6.4 billion valuation, the market is taking cues from Receptos and ozanimod, betting that Anacor is an attractive takeover target with the de-risked crisabarole months away from a New Drug Application.
Earnings for large-cap biopharma companies begin to trickle out next week, with Celgene and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) both reporting on the 23rd (Thursday). Below is the short list of high-profile biopharma names, and when they report second quarter earnings:
Biogen (BIIB) – Friday, July 24
Gilead Sciences (GILD) – Tuesday, July 28
Amgen (AMGN) – Thursday, July 30
Biomarin (BMRN) – Monday, August 3
Regeneron (REGN) – Tuesday, August 4
Medivation (MDVN) – Thursday, August 6
This week we published our own preview to Gilead Sciences’ second quarter, in which Dr. Paul De Santis explained why he remains bullish on GILD’s long-term prospects despite the company’s lagging multiple compared to peers. Hepatitis C is still critical to the story as Sovaldi and Harvoni ramp in emerging markets, but Wall Street waits anxiously for Gilead to do some transformational M&A. Dr. De Santis does some speculating on what that might look like, and on what might get GILD out of its low-multiple P/E funk. Get the full story at PropThink.
