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Deals In Depth: May 2021

 
• By Maureen Riordan and Deanna Kamienski

Four $1b+ alliances were penned in May. Topping the list was Bristol-Myers Squibb’s deal with Agenus under which BMS will be granted a global exclusive license to the late-preclinical antibody program AGEN1777 along with a second undisclosed target. Agenus received a $200m up-front payment and could get up to $1.36bn in development, regulatory, and commercialization milestones, plus tiered royalties in the low double-digit to mid-teen range.

Deals In Depth
• Source: Alamy

In the top May M&A by deal value, private equity firm The Carlyle Group agreed to buy UK-based CDMO Vectura Group for $1.36bn. Vectura had initially been developing its own therapeutic pipeline of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease candidates until its VR475, a drug-device combination for severe uncontrolled asthma, was halted following a late-stage study failure at the end of 2018. The company rebranded itself as a CDMO in the field of inhalation technology in 2019. Financing reached $5.7bn in biopharma, $519m in device, and $1.6bn in diagnostics.

Exhibit 2

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