Sounds familiar ?

In March 2023, Sanofi acquired the diabetes drug Tzield, along with its owner Provention Bio, for $2.9 billion. While not among the largest deals in the biopharma industry, it’s still a sizeable sum of money—especially for a treatment once discarded by another pharma giant.Initially developed by MacroGenics, the intravenous antibody treatment was scooped up by Eli Lilly in 2007, but Lilly dropped it three years later after a clinical trial in recently diagnosed type 1 diabetes patients failed to show a significant reduction in daily insulin dose or blood sugar levels in the treatment group compared to placebo. But it wasn’t the end of the road for Tzield.In 2018, MacroGenics licensed the drug to Provention for $6.1 million, according to SEC filings. In 2022, Sanofi took an interest, partnering with Provention to commercialize the drug. Late last year, the investment paid off—the FDA approved Tzield, and Sanofi moved forward with a complete acquisition of Provention and its drug.Such a convoluted history for therapeutics is not uncommon.Pharmaceutical companies may decide to sell the rights to their drug development programs when they have no intention of manufacturing the drug, or the research process doesn’t turn out as planned. However, sometimes the offloaded products perform better elsewhere, leading to big buyouts as companies try to expand their portfolios.