Astel­las to buy Iver­ic Bio for $5.9B in cash as biotech awaits Au­gust FDA nod in reti­nal dis­ease

Astel­las Phar­ma will buy New Jer­sey biotech Iver­ic Bio for $40 per share in cash, the com­pa­nies said Sun­day night, set­ting up the Tokyo drug­mak­er for a po­ten­tial show­down with Apel­lis Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals in ge­o­graph­ic at­ro­phy.

The $5.9 bil­lion deal adds to a string of buy­outs in re­cent weeks as Big Phar­mas have gone hunt­ing for late-stage drug can­di­dates to boost their ag­ing pipelines, with Pfiz­er, GSK, Mer­ck and oth­ers lin­ing up ac­qui­si­tions.

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