The multibillion dollar deals keep coming for AbbVie.
The pharma giant announced Wednesday evening that it is acquiring Cerevel, a biotech focused on developing treatments for central nervous system (CNS) disorders, for $8.7 billion.
By acquiring Cerevel, AbbVie will add several clinical-stage and preclinical drug candidates for treating a host of CNS diseases like schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease and mood disorders to its extensive neuroscience portfolio.
One of Cerevel’s most promising assets is emraclidine, a positive allosteric modulator (PAM) of the muscarinic M4 receptor, which the company describes as a potential best-in-class, next-generation antipsychotic for treating patients living with schizophrenia.
Emraclidine showed promising efficacy and safety in a Phase 1b study for treating schizophrenia, is currently in an a Phase 1 study for treating psychosis caused by Alzheimer’s disease and is completing two Phase 2 trials for treating schizophrenia.
Cerevel is also developing tavapadon, a first-in-class dopamine D1/D5 selective partial agonist for managing Parkinson’s disease, which is in Phase 3 studies as well as CVL-354, a potential best-in-class kappa opioid receptor antagonist for treating major depressive disorder and darigabat, an alpha 2/3/5 selective GABAA receptor PAM for treatment-resistant epilepsy and panic disorder.
The deal, which is still subject to approval by Cerevel’s shareholders as well as other regulatory greenlights and meeting other customary closing conditions, is expected to close in the middle of 2024.
AbbVie said the deal is expected to be accretive to adjusted diluted earnings per share beginning in 2030.
“Our existing neuroscience portfolio and our combined pipeline with Cerevel represents a significant growth opportunity well into the next decade,” AbbVie CEO Richard A. Gonzalez said in a statement. “AbbVie will leverage its deep commercial capabilities, international infrastructure, and regulatory and clinical expertise to deliver substantial shareholder value with multibillion-dollar sales potential across Cerevel’s portfolio of assets.”
Meanwhile, Cerevel CEO Ron Renaud said AbbVie’s decision to buy the company represents a “renaissance” in the neuroscience industry.
The Cerevel pickup comes one week after AbbVie announced a $10.1 billion acquisition of ImmunoGen, a clinical-stage biotech that manufactures antibody-drug conjugates (ADC).
The key asset for AbbVie is Elahere, ImmunoGen’s first-in-class ADC approved for treating platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
Like the Cerevel acquisition, the ImmunoGen deal is expected to close in mid-2024.
In November, AbbVie also struck a deal to acquire neurodegenerative disease specialist Mitokinin, paying shareholders $110 million at closing for the purchase. The deal could grow by another $545 million depending on hitting certain developmental and commercial milestones as well as potential tiered royalty payments.
