You can add Ab­b­Vie and Al­ler­gan’s $63 bil­lion merg­er to the list of plans po­ten­tial­ly dis­rupt­ed by Covid-19.

The Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion said that it may need to of­fer ex­ten­sions on cer­tain cas­es be­cause coro­n­avirus-re­lat­ed dis­rup­tions may make it dif­fi­cult for com­pa­nies to make doc­u­ments and wit­ness­es avail­able, Bloomberg re­port­ed.

That could mean a sud­den road­block just be­fore the fin­ish line for the gi­ant drug­mak­ers, who have been slow-walk­ing their way to a merg­er since they an­nounced one last June. Most re­cent­ly, in ear­ly March, the Eu­ro­pean Union gave the all-clear and — months af­ter the FTC is­sued a rare “sec­ond re­quest” in their re­view of the buy­out — the two com­pa­nies said they had agreed to a time­line with the US agency to fin­ish by the first days of the 2nd quar­ter, i.e. ear­ly April or May.

The new­found mo­men­tum came af­ter Al­ler­gan di­vest­ed brazikum­ab, an IL-23 in­hibitor, back to As­traZeneca. In let­ters to the FTC, unions, con­sumer ad­vo­ca­cy groups and De­mo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors raised an­titrust con­cerns about the drug’s sim­i­lar­i­ty to Ab­b­Vie’s IL-23 in­hibitor Skyrizi. Al­ler­gan’s en­docrine drug Zen­pep was al­so di­vest­ed to Nestlé for sim­i­lar rea­sons.

In a state­ment re­leased yes­ter­day, Ab­b­Vie and Al­ler­gan said they had en­tered in­to a con­sent de­cree with the FTC on the di­vest­ments. The com­pa­nies said they ex­pect­ed to close in May.

Di­vesti­tures of this kind are rou­tine in Big Phar­ma merg­ers. Last year, Cel­gene di­vest­ed Ote­zla for $13.4 bil­lion as part of its buy­out by Bris­tol My­ers. The brazikum­ab sell-off, though, didn’t sat­is­fy many of the unions and con­sumer groups op­pos­ing the deal, who wrote to the FTC in Feb­ru­ary that As­traZeneca was ill-po­si­tioned to bring the drug for­ward and that Ab­b­Vie’s re­bate walls on Skyrizi would lim­it the ri­val drug’s mar­ket po­ten­tial.

This deal would make Ab­b­Vie the fourth largest phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny in the world.

The average level of investment required for a biotech start-up to succeed is increasing every year, elevating the pressure even further on venture capital to make smart financial investments. Financial investment alone, however, does not always guarantee that exciting innovations can be transformed into real businesses that make a meaningful difference to patients.

Beyond just capital

At Astellas Venture Management (AVM) – a wholly-owned venture capital organization within Astellas, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area – capital is just one of the ingredients we offer to add value to our biotechnology investments and partnerships. We generally take a strategic investor approach for companies in our invested portfolio, providing access to expertise, technology and/or resources in addition to the injection of finance. An equity investment from AVM can include access to Astellas’ research and development (R&D) capabilities and expertise, and a global network of partner academic institutions and biotechnology companies, to help advance and accelerate the start-up’s innovation.

Unum $UMRX is working its way through a survival plan of sorts.

After getting hit with a trio of FDA holds in its brief public history and triggering its second pivot to a new lead drug program while laying off 60% of the staff, the troubled penny stock biotech Unum Therapeutics has hatched new plans to secure financial backing while lining up a go-forward strategy for the company.

First, Lincoln Park Capital Fund has agreed to buy up to $25 million of the long-suffering stock, as Unum directs. And the executive team — led by CEO Chuck Wilson — has put everything on the table for consideration: a sale, acquisition, merger, licensing deal, you name it. The ACTR707 program, meanwhile, is being formally wrapped up — their second failed lead program.