Al­ler­gan’s ex­ec­u­tive team or­ches­trates a $200M buy­out to beef up gas­troen­terol­o­gy pipeline

Al­ler­gan CEO Brent Saun­ders has bagged the lat­est in a long string of new biotech buy­outs. The tar­get this time: a di­a­bet­ic gas­tro­pare­sis drug called re­lam­ore­lin (RM-131), which just cleared a Phase IIb study and will now head straight in­to a piv­otal tri­al. And they’re jump­ing in­to a field that hasn’t seen a new drug ap­proved in more than 30 years.

Al­ler­gan $AGN is pay­ing $200 mil­lion to com­plete the deal, ac­quir­ing a sub­sidiary of Rhythm Hold­ing called Mo­tus, which owns the rights to the ghre­lin ag­o­nist. That comes on top of the $47 mil­lion that Al­ler­gan hand­ed over for the op­tion on the drug and tri­al sup­port. There’s al­so an added bonus pay­ment due if and when the drug achieves its first com­mer­cial sales.

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