Blackstone antes $250M on its first big biotech bet, focused on a cardio drug spun out of Novartis
Five months after Blackstone bought out Clarus with a plan to dive deep into the life sciences field, the global private equity player has lined up its first big bet.
Blackstone teamed with Novartis to launch a new cardio biotech — Cambridge, MA-based Anthos Therapeutics — that will be helmed by one of the pharma giant’s former execs and backed with a monster $250 million launch round.
Novartis is spinning out an anticoagulant dubbed MAA868, an antibody directed at Factor XI and XIa and targeted at the “intrinsic coagulation pathway.” Blackstone Life Sciences is providing the cash and is laying out the strategy, with a plan to tackle thrombotic disorders. Novartis is exchanging a minority equity interest in the startup for rights to the drug — an increasingly popular gambit for big pharmas, which often finds themselves with more programs than they can budget for.
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