AstraZeneca to buy Ardea for $1.3 billion
pharmafile | April 23, 2012 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Ardea, AstraZeneca, febuxostat, gout
AstraZeneca is to buy Ardea Biosciences for $1 billion to help bolster its pipeline.
Under the terms of the agreement, AstraZeneca will acquire Ardea for $32 per share, which represents a total cash value of around $1.26 billion.
AZ will buy into Ardea’s most advanced product candidate lesinurad, which is currently in Phase III trials for the chronic management of hyperuricaemia in patients with gout.
Through this acquisition, AstraZeneca will also add to its pipeline RDEA3170, a next-generation selective URAT1 inhibitor currently in Phase I development.
David Brennan, chief executive of AstraZeneca, said: “This attractive Phase III programme is an excellent opportunity to leverage AstraZeneca’s global specialty and primary care sales and marketing capabilities.
“The Ardea team has done a great job developing lesinurad along with a promising next-generation gout programme. These compounds have real potential to benefit patients.”
Barry Quart, president and chief executive of Ardea, said: “From our earliest interactions, we were impressed with the quality of AstraZeneca’s people and we are confident their commercial strength and global reach will help realise the full potential of our programmes.
“The Ardea team and I are committed to helping complete development and working to secure registration for lesinurad.”
Lesinurad is a selective inhibitor of URAT1, a transporter in the proximal tubule cells of the kidney that regulates uric acid excretion from the body, which is being developed as an oral, once-daily treatment for the chronic management of hyperuricaemia in patients with gout.
There are already several drugs on the market to treat this condition, including Teijin/Takeda’s Adenuric (febuxostat) and generic allopurinol.
Adenuric was first approved in the US in 2009 and had 2010 sales of $87 million, and was the first new treatment for hyperuricaemia in patients with gout in 40 years.
Lesinurad is currently undergoing Phase III studies as an add-on treatment to allopurinol, in patients not reaching target serum uric acid levels on allopurinol alone.
It is also being used as as monotherapy for those patients who are intolerant to allopurinol or Adenuric.
The firms plan to file the drug for US and European regulatory reviews for the first half of 2014.
Gout interest
This comes just a week after Takeda bought the gout specialist firm URL Pharma for $800 million.
URL Pharma’s lead drug Colcrys (colchicine), which is licensed to treat and prevent gout flares, made the firm $430 million in sales last year.
Takeda already has a strong position in the gout marketplace with its drug Uloric (febuxostat), used to lower blood uric acid levels in adults with gout.
The global gout market is valued at around $1 billion, with 50% of sales coming from outside the United States and Europe.
Ben Adams
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