AbbVie to acquire Cerevel for $8.7 billion

2023-12-06

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In its second major buyout in the last week, AbbVie said Wednesday that it reached a deal to acquire Pfizer spinout Cerevel Therapeutics for $45 per share in cash, or roughly $8.7 billion, in a move aimed at bolstering its portfolio of neuroscience treatments. The announcement comes days after AbbVie struck a deal to take over ImmunoGen for $10.1 billion as it looks to expand its pipeline in the face of biosimilar competition for its top seller Humira (adalimumab).

"Our existing neuroscience portfolio and our combined pipeline with Cerevel represents a significant growth opportunity well into the next decade," said CEO Richard Gonzalez, adding he believes Cerevel's assets hold "multibillion-dollar sales potential."

The acquisition will give it access to multiple clinical-stage and preclinical assets across diseases including schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease and mood disorders. AbbVie's neuroscience portfolio, which brought in a total $2 billion in sales in the third quarter, is centred on the migraine drugs Ubrelvy (ubrogepant) and Qulipta (atogepant), the atypical antipsychotic Vraylar (cariprazine), and Botox (onabotulinumtoxinA) for therapeutic use.

Beefing up portfolio of psychiatric, neurological drugs

Meanwhile, Cerevel is working on the late-stage asset emraclidine, a positive allosteric modulator (PAM) of the muscarinic M4 receptor, as a potential once-daily antipsychotic for patients with schizophrenia where it has shown "meaningful and statistically significant improvements" on symptom severity in a Phase Ib trial. The company said it is currently completing a pair of mid-stage studies designed to be registration-enabling. Emraclidine is also being evaluated in Phase I in healthy elderly volunteers to support a potential Alzheimer's disease psychosis programme.

The company's other assets include tavapadon, a dopamine D1/D5 selective partial agonist for the management of Parkinson's disease, which is in Phase III testing with potential as both monotherapy and adjunctive treatment. "Tavapadon's efficacy and safety-tolerability profile could enable its utility in early Parkinson's disease, becoming a near-term complementary asset to [our] existing symptomatic therapies for advanced Parkinson's," AbbVie noted.

Cerevel is also developing the kappa opioid receptor antagonist CVL-354, currently in Phase I for major depressive disorder, and darigabat, an alpha 2/3/5 selective GABAA receptor PAM GABAA receptor PAM that is in Phase II for treatment-resistant epilepsy and panic disorder. Earlier this year, Cerevel disclosed that there would be a delay of clinical readouts for its neuroscience drug candidates, including tavapadon and darigabat.

The respective boards of both AbbVie and Cerevel have approved the transaction, which is expected to close in the middle of 2024. For more on the recent ImmunoGen deal, see Spotlight On: AbbVie buys ImmunoGen for $10.1 billion - The key takeaways.

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