Ane­mia spe­cial­ist Ake­bia merges with Keryx on the eve of a block­buster brawl with Fi­bro­Gen

Ake­bia is go­ing in­to its head-to-head late-stage fight with Fi­bro­Gen with a lit­tle more fire­pow­er.

Two months af­ter Keryx $KERX CEO Gre­go­ry Madi­son abrupt­ly re­signed and left the com­pa­ny, the biotech has fol­lowed through to­day by agree­ing to a merg­er with Ake­bia $AK­BA, a biotech with a close­ly-watched ane­mia drug in late-stage de­vel­op­ment.

The com­bi­na­tion of the two com­pa­nies will bring to­geth­er two drugs de­signed for pa­tients with chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease. Keryx mar­kets Au­ryx­ia, which ac­count­ed for the li­on’s share of about $22 mil­lion in Q1 rev­enue. That drug is used to fight iron de­fi­cien­cy ane­mia in pa­tients with chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease.

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