This news might be a little dated now, but it highlights the type of deals that Big Pharma is doing in the Inflammatory Bowel Disease space (eg IHL-675A)

Merck to buy inflammatory disease drugmaker Prometheus for $10.8B

The deal is the pharmaceutical industry’s second largest this year, behind only Pfizer’s pending $43 billion purchase of Seagen.

The deal will hand Merck a drug that’s shown promise as a treatment for inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, a chronic condition that affects several million people in the U.S., according to estimates. IBD causes inflammation and damage to the gastrointestinal tract, and is currently treated with immune-suppressing medicines to manage symptoms. None are curative and not all patients respond to treatment, however.

Prometheus is one of several companies working to develop a new type of biologic drug for IBD. Its medicine is an antibody that homes in on a protein called TL1A, which is thought to regulate inflammation and fibrosis. Results from a Phase 2 study last year in moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis and hard-to-treat Crohn’s disease were so promising they caused shares of the biotech to triple in value, making Prometheus the top performer among all biotech companies to go public since 2021, according to BioPharma Dive data. (A biotech co-founded by Pfizer and Roivant Sciences is developing another, similar medicine that’s also in mid-stage testing.)

https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/merck-prometheus-acquire-inflammatory-bowel-disease-drug/647768/

GLAH