M&A activity in the healthcare industry continued to increase last week with Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharma agreeing to acquire Iveric Bio (ISEE) for an enterprise value of $4.83 billion.
Iveric Bio (ISEE)
Iveric Bio is a biopharmaceutical company, that focuses on the discovery and development of novel treatments for retinal diseases, that have significant unmet medical needs.
Geographic atrophy secondary to AMD, leads to irreversible loss of vision in patients and has a high unmet medical need. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) causes moderate to severe loss of central vision in aging adults, and affects both eyes in the majority of patients. The macula, a small area in the central portion of the retina, is responsible for central vision. As AMD progresses, it causes loss of retinal cells and the underlying blood vessels in the macula, that results in marked thinning and/or atrophy of retinal tissue.
Avacincaptad Pegol (ACP), a novel complement C5 protein inhibitor, is an investigational drug developed by Iveric Bio, currently under evaluation for safety and efficacy by the FDA. By targeting the C5 protein, ACP has the potential to decrease activity of the complement system that causes the degeneration of retinal cells and potentially slow down the progression of GA. ACP met its primary endpoint in the completed GATHER1 clinical trial and the ongoing GATHER2 clinical trial both of which are randomized, double-masked, sham-controlled, multicenter Phase 3 clinical trials.