The Whens and Whys of Top Biotech M&A Deals, page-8

Neuren seems to be most similar to Cerevel and Prometheus Biosciences, rather than Reata, who had a drug already approved…. I genuinely believe Neuren will be competed for as Prometheus Biosciences was.

Innameonly, I’m not in agreement with you on this. Apples and oranges.

Yes, Merck acquired the clinical-stage biotech Prometheus for US$10.8bn following “encouraging” mid-phase results. And yes, that demonstrates that pharma doesn’t always wait for Phase 3 proof and/or FDA approval before pouncing on coveted assets.

But this is not just about the stage that the company is at, it’s also about considerations such as therapeutic areas and patient populations sizes.

Prometheus specialized in antibody treatments for autoimmune diseases.

Immunology is one of the “hot” areas for pharma, along with diabetes and obesity drugs and the always-popular area of oncology. These are the therapeutic areas anticipated to be the biggest contributors to pharma revenue growth in the near future. Consequently, all of the larger pharma are keen to have a strong presence in these areas. As the Merck CEO said, "I believe now we have a very strong portfolio in the cardiometabolic space. We see this acquisition of Prometheus building out a similar portfolio in the immunology space."

The main targeted molecule in this deal was being developed in ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. Approximately 1 million Americans have a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis and approximately 750,000 have Crohn’s disease. For the broader area of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) there are over 7 million sufferers globally.

Prometheus also had a discovery engine platform for novel precision therapeutics and diagnostics, which included a clinical database and associated biobank with one of the world’s largest collections of biospecimens from patients suffering from IBD and other GI disorders. That would be of significant interest and value to pharma.

Neuren’s current portfolio of small molecule, rare, neurodevelopmental disease assets is more niche. This is not to say that I doubt that pharma will be interested, I believe they will – it’s just that I think that there are likely to be fewer pharma suitors for such assets and these will most likely be those with an already-established presence in rare disease and neurology.