Eli Lilly and Company has agreed to acquire CoLucid Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biopharmaceutical company focused on migraine therapies, for $46.50 per share or approximately $960 million in an all-cash transaction. The acquisition will boost Lilly’s existing portfolio in pain management for migraine, while adding a potential near-term launch to its late-stage pipeline.

CoLucid Pharmaceuticals is developing a drug candidate, lasmiditan, an oral 5-HT1F agonist for the acute treatment of migraine, which is in Phase III studies. The company anticipates filing the drug for regulatory approval in 2018. Lasmiditan was originally discovered at Lilly and was out-licensed to CoLucid in 2005, at a time when pain management was not a strategic area of focus for Lilly. Lilly has since reorganized its research and development efforts to focus on migraine as part of its pain management portfolio, which is an emerging therapeutic area for the company.

Lilly’s pain management portfolio also includes galcanezumab, a potential drug in Phase III development for preventing migraine and cluster headache. In addition, Lilly is studying another candidate, tanezumab, in collaboration with Pfizer, for treating multiple pain indications, including osteoarthritis, lower back pain, and cancer pain.

The transaction for the CoLucid Pharmaceuticals acquisition is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2017, subject to clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and other customary closing conditions.

Source: Eli Lilly and Company