Takeda Pharmaceutical has agreed to acquire Ariad Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for $24 per share in cash, or an enterprise value of approximately $5.2 billion. The acquisition boosts Takeda’s oncology portfolio, particularly for rare cancer therapeutics.

The acquisition is structured as an all-cash tender offer by a subsidiary of Takeda for all of the outstanding shares of Ariad common stock, followed by a merger in which remaining shares of Ariad would be converted into the right to receive the same $24 cash per share price paid in the tender offer. Ariad will become an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Takeda.

With the acquisition, Takeda gains two targeted rare-cancer therapies, Iclusig (ponatinib), a commercialized leukemia drug, and brigatinib, an investigational drug under development for lung cancer. Iclusig is approved for chronic myeloid leukemia and a subset of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The drug had 2015 sales of $112.5 million. Brigatinib is a late-stage drug candidate being evaluated for the potential treatment of a genetically defined subpopulation of non-small cell lung cancer patients. Brigatinib has a peak annual sales potential of over $1 billion, according to Ariad. US approval for the drug is expected in the first half of 2017 with global filing thereafter. In addition, Takeda gains a pipeline that includes targeted kinase inhibitors as well as Ariad’s translational science-based research and development platform.

The transaction is subject to the tender of a majority of the outstanding shares of Ariad common stock as well as other customary closing conditions, including expiration of the applicable waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 and the antitrust laws of applicable foreign jurisdictions. The transaction is expected to close by the end of February 2017.

Source: Takeda Pharmaceutical