More than 30 years after entering the scene as a first-generation monoclonal antibody pioneer, Morphosys AG is to be acquired by Novartis AG for €2.7 billion (US$2.9 billion). The all-cash deal, announced after Nasdaq closed on Feb. 5, will see Novartis paying €68 per share, a premium of 94% to the average daily price in the month leading up to Jan. 25, when rumors of a takeover started swirling.
Novartis’s €2.7B acquisition of MorphoSys brings two cancer drug candidates, one of which would give the pharmaceutical giant a way to stand apart from other myelofibrosis treatments. In a separate deal, MorphoSys sold to Incyte its rights to a partnered blood cancer drug.
Raajit K. Rampal, MD, PhD, presents data from the MANIFEST-2 study investigating pelabresib in combination with ruxolitinib in Janus kinase inhibitor treatment–naïve patients with myelofibrosis.
Treatment with the combination of pelabresib and ruxolitinib led to a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in spleen volume reduction vs placebo plus ruxolitinib in patients with JAK inhibitor-naive myelofibrosis, meeting the primary end point of the phase 3 MANIFEST-2 trial.