The British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced on Tuesday the acquisition of the Fusion laboratory, specializing in radiopharmaceutical products against cancer, for an amount of up to $2.4 billion. The company has “entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Fusion Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company developing next-generation radioconjugates,” it explains in a press release. The proposed buyout price is $21.00 per share in cash, twice the value of Fusion’s stock as of Monday’s close, plus up to three dollars per stock contingent on the achievement of certain objectives.
Aztrazeneca shares lost 1.05% to 10,182.0 pence on the London Stock Exchange around 10:00 GMT. Radioconjugates are a new form of cancer treatment based on radioactive isotopes that directly target cancer cells via molecules such as antibodies or peptides, explains AstraZeneca. This approach reduces damage to healthy cells compared to traditional radiotherapies and makes it possible to reach malignant cells that are difficult to reach by rays, the press release specifies.
This is a “major milestone” in AstraZeneca’s ambition to “transform cancer treatment and patient outcomes by replacing traditional treatment regimens like chemotherapy and radiotherapy with more targeted treatments,” the group argued in a press release. Fusion’s pipeline of drugs in development includes FPI-2265, a “potential new treatment” for certain forms of resistant metastasized prostate cancer. Fusion has its main headquarters in Hamilton, Canada and another in Boston, United States. The company is listed on Nasdaq in New York.
Last week, the British laboratory had already announced the acquisition of the French biotechnology company Amolyt Pharma, specializing in treatments against rare diseases, for an amount of up to one billion dollars. “Cancer treatments already represent a third of AstraZeneca’s sales and remain an important growth driver,” comments Susannah Streeter, analyst at Heargreaves Lansdown.
She notes, however, that the development of these therapies “can prove very costly in terms of research and marketing”, hence the emphasis placed by the group on the acquisition of companies with drugs already in the advanced development phase for limit financial risks. According to her, the decline in the share price could mean that the market is not expecting major revenue streams from this acquisition but “Astrazeneca is at the forefront of new ways of treating cancer and is not afraid to multiply bets” on promising companies, concludes Susannah Streeter.
