Celgene to Acquire Avila Therapeutics

(USTR.gov)

The pharmaceutical company Celgene Corp. in Summit, New Jersey says it will acquire Avila Therapeutics, a biotechnology company in Bedford, Massachusetts. Celgene discovers and commercializes therapies for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases through gene and protein regulation. Avila develops covalent drugs, those that bind to and inhibit disease-causing proteins.

Under the agreement, Celgene will acquire Avila for $350 million in cash, plus up to $575 million in milestone payments. Most ($380 million) of the milestone payments are conditioned on development of drug candidates from Avila’s Avilomics platform. That platform, says the company, is based on a chemistry process that forms selective rather an indiscriminate bindings, informatics to target potential binding sites, and empirical testing at target and proteomic levels.

The remaining $195 million in milestones are based on the development and regulatory approval of Avila’s drug candidate AVL-292, a covalent drug for the treatment of hematologic cancers such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. Avila says AVL-292 showed evidence of effectiveness in preclinical tests on animals, is has successfully completed two phase 1 clinical trials.

Celgene expects the Avila acquisition to be completed during the first quarter of 2012. The company does not anticipate the acquisition to affect its 2012 earnings guidance.

Read more: Biotech Lands $30 Million Late Stage Investment

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