AbbVie has closed its $10.1 billion buyout of antibody-drug conjugate specialist ImmunoGen. And the good news from an industry perspective is that the transaction closed well ahead of AbbVie's initial expectation.
After the FTC cleared the acquisition late last week, AbbVie and ImmunoGen completed the transaction on Monday.
The companies only revealed the buyout in late November. At the time of the announcement, AbbVie said it expected to close the ImmunoGen deal in the "middle of 2024."
While Pfizer’s $43 billion buyout of Seagen took nine months to complete, several other recent deals in the AbbVie-ImmunoGen orbit have followed a similar timeline.
Merck’s $10.8 billion acquisition of Prometheus, Biogen’s $7.3 billion purchase of Reata Pharmaceuticals and Roche’s $7.1 billion buyout of Televant all took no more than two months to complete. Astellas’ $5.9 billion purchase of Iveric Bio took just over two months to close.
Last year, when the FTC filed a lawsuit challenging Amgen’s $27.8 billion acquisition of Horizon, it was the first time since 2009 that the agency had used the tactic to try to block a merger. Less than four months later, the FTC signed off on the deal when Amgen agreed not to bundle any of its newly acquired drugs in rebate schemes.
As for AbbVie’s deal with ImmunoGen, the Illinois company gains Elahere, which was approved in 2022. AbbVie will try to move the ADC into earlier lines of treatment for ovarian cancer. It remains the lone ADC approved in the indication.
“We have the potential to continue redefining the standard of care for those living with cancer,” Robert Michael, AbbVie’s chief operating officer, said in a release. “The addition of ImmunoGen’s treatment for ovarian cancer will accelerate our ability to help patients today, expand our oncology pipeline and drive long-term revenue growth well into the next decade.”
Elahere generated $105 million in revenue in the third quarter of last year. GlobalData estimates sales of the drug will reach $1.4 billion by 2029. Elahere will beef up AbbVie’s solid tumor oncology portfolio and will help compensate for the erosion of sales of mega-blockbuster Humira, which faced biosimilar competition for the first time last year.
AbbVie also hopes soon to close an $8.7 billion deal to acquire neuroscience specialist Cerevel Therapeutics. The companies revealed their agreement on Dec. 5, less than a week after AbbVie announced the ImmunoGen merger.
Along with the ImmunoGen close, AbbVie on Monday cut 4 cents from its first-quarter adjusted diluted earnings per share guidance because of the deal's "dilutive impact."