**: Yakudu Daily
Original: Huang Zhongping.
On December 22, 2023, BMS announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Karuna Therapeutics at a price of 330 per shareThe $0 cash acquisition of Karuna, with a total equity value of about $14 billion, was valued at $215 the previous day$19, with an acquisition premium of $5335%。
And just half a month ago, AbbVie reached a definitive agreement with Cerevel Therapeutics at 45$0 to acquire all of its outstanding shares, with a total equity value of approximately $8.7 billion.
It is worth mentioning that Karuna and Cerevel are both committed to drug research and development in the field of neuroscience, and the two major MNC pharmaceutical companies have coincidentally spent huge sums of money on the track in this field
Skills are released passively
Expand beyond the core areas
According to BMS's Q3 2023 financial report, revenue in the third quarter was $11 billion, down 2% year-on-year, which is the fifth consecutive quarterly revenue decline for BMS.
The core products of BMS are the cardiovascular drug Eliquis and the anti-cancer drug Opdivo, with sales of 93 in the first three quarters of 2023$3.2 billion and $66US$2.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 254% and 976%, it is worth noting that Eliquis and Opdivo saw sales growth of 12 per cent in the same period last year48% and 90%, the market expansion momentum of the most core products has declined, so that BMS has to consider breaking through in other fields.
Sales of BMS products in Q1-3 of 2023.
BMS Q3 2023 financial report.
AbbVie's performance and core products are also facing the same fate, according to its 2023 Q3 financial report, the third quarter revenue was 1392.7 billion US dollars, down 60%, the core product Humira can't escape the pain of the patent cliff after being re-elected as the "king of medicine" for ten years, with sales of 111 in the first three quarters of 20230 billion US dollars, down 291%, despite the strong market expansion in the first three quarters of the "second prince" Skyrizi, sales increased by 49% year-on-year6%, but with the continued "attack" of Humira biosimilars, Skyrizi simply cannot pick up the performance gap left by Humira.
AbbVie product sales in Q1-3 2023.
AbbVie's Q3 2023 earnings report.
Pfizer's acquisition of Seagen for $43 billion in March at the beginning of the year set off a new wave of mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical industry in 2023, and as of November 2023, there have been 16 mergers and acquisitions exceeding $1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4545%, and the total amount of the top 10 events in the total value of mergers and acquisitions reached 97.5 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 8987%。
AbbVie saw that he was anxious in his eyes, and finally broke out after 11 months of caution, making two moves in a week in December at the end of the year, first with the acquisition of Immunogen for $10.1 billion to continue the layout of ADCs, and then with the acquisition of Cerevel for $8.7 billion to strengthen the neuroscience pipeline, with the aim of seeking breakthroughs outside the strongest self-immune field.
BMS is even more determined in the field of neuroscience, with an acquisition value of $14 billion, which is 60 percent higher than AbbVie's92%, the rate of return is not only luck, but also depends on the amount of pay, AbbVie's first start, BMS's aggressiveness, the two major mnc pharmaceutical giants have made the neuroscience field lively.
Newbie vs Veteran
It's hard to tell the difference for a while
BMS has 17 main products, but compared with other pharmaceutical companies according to the division of the first field, BMS divides its products into three levels according to the product life cycle: in-line (mature products), new product portfolio (newly launched products) and recent loe (expired products), but according to the 17 products that have been approved worldwide, BMS is undoubtedly a novice in the field of neuroscience.
BMS main product details.
Source**: BMS financial report, Yaodu data.
BMS's acquisition of Karuna is to accelerate the expansion and diversification of the field of neuroscience, but among the 6 products in Karuna's research pipeline, two products with disclosed indications are Karxt and KAR-2618, of which Karxt's indications under development are **psychiatric disorders, **psychiatric diseases are assisted by existing standard of care drugs** and psychosis in patients with Alzheimer's disease, KAR-2618 is being studied for mood and anxiety disorders, which shows that BMS's offensive in the field of neuroscience is clear, mainly for psychiatric disorders.
Karuna's pipeline is under development.
Karuna official website.
On the other hand, AbbVie is a "veteran" in the field of neuroscience, which has been approved for marketing a number of products in this field, among which the main products are Botox Therapeutic, Vraylar, Duodopa, Ubrelvy and Qulipta and other 5 products, It is worth mentioning that although the sales of other products in this field in the first three quarters of 2023 increased from 4 in the same period last year$1.4 billion slipped to $2100 million US dollars, but sales of all five major products achieved positive growth.
Sales of AbbVie products in the field of neuroscience.
AbbVie 2022 2023 Q3 financial report.
In terms of product variety, AbbVie's products in the field of neuroscience are more comprehensive, in addition to botox therapeutic, duodopa, ubrelvy and qulipta for upper and lower limb spasms, neuropathic bladder dysfunction, migraine and other neurological diseases, as well as for major depressive disorder, psychiatric** It is worth mentioning that the expansion of the Vraylar market is still on the rise, with sales of 19$7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 3374%, which is equivalent to the annual sales of 2022 (20$3.8 billion) of 9666%。
While AbbVie's primary product for psychiatric disorders is only Vraylar, and in the neuroscience pipeline, only ABBV-932 is used for psychiatric bipolar depression, Cerevel's pipeline strengthens AbbVie's psychiatric disorders, including Emraclidine for Alzheimer's disease psychosis and psychosis, CVL-354 for major depressive disorder, and Darigabat for panic disorder.
AbbVie and Cerevel pipelines complement each other.
AbbVie's official website.
It is worth mentioning that Emraclidine is a potential best-in-class next-generation antipsychotic drug in Phase 3 clinical trials for psychiatric disorders, and with the blessing of Cerevel, AbbVie will make up for the lack of less expertise in mental illness.
However, Karuna, which was acquired by BMS, a "novice" in the field of neuroscience, has made inferior progress to its pipeline products compared with CEREVEL, and only Karxt and KAR-2618 have entered the clinical stage, but Karxt is an investigational muscarinic antipsychotic drug, which is different from the existing ** method, does not directly block dopamine receptors, and the new drug application (NDA) for **psychosis has been reviewed by the US FDA.
According to the emergent-2 study, a phase 3 trial of Karxt, 252 adults with psychiatric disorders were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to the ** and placebo groups, and the total score of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was reduced by 9 in the ** group at week 56 points, and was generally well tolerated, with an overall discontinuation rate similar to placebo (25% vs. 21%), and a similar discontinuation rate due to adverse events between the two groups (7% vs. 6%).
In addition, Karxt has potential in other indications, such as type 1 bipolar disorder, in addition to the three indications it is studying, which may be where the greatest value of BMS's $14 billion acquisition of Karuna lies.
One is Cerevel, which has a potential best-in-class drug and has more clinical products, and the other is Karuna, which has a breakthrough clinical product that is different from the existing ** and has few clinical products.
Conclusion
BMS and AbbVie are not limited to the field of neuroscience, AbbVie in 2023, when the "King of Medicine" crown was won, after 11 months of silence, also includes the acquisition of ADC giant Immunogen, although before this, the clinical development of ADC drug ROVA-T was not smooth, so AbbVie had to terminate the ROVA-T project, and successively cut a number of ADC project pipelines, but AbbVie is determined to get up from the fallen ADC field.
In April 2023, BMS introduced Tubulis' P5-conjugated ADC technology platform to jointly develop a new generation of ADC drugs at a cost of US$22.75 million in advance payment and more than US$1 billion in milestone payment, and in December 2023, at a total amount of US$8.4 billion including US$800 million upfront, it introduced BL-B01D1, a HER3 EGFR bispecific antibody ADC product of Baili Tianheng.
The two ring battles between BMS and AbbVie are destined to be exciting, and Yaodu will continue to pay attention to it and watch and share it with everyone.
Reference**
Official websites and financial reports of relevant pharmaceutical companies.
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