Fed­er­al judge de­nies Bris­tol My­er­s' at­tempt to avoid Cel­gene share­hold­er law­suit

Some Cel­gene share­hold­ers aren’t hap­py with how Bris­tol My­ers Squibb’s takeover went down.

On Fri­day, a New York fed­er­al judge ruled that they have a case against the phar­ma gi­ant, deny­ing a re­quest to dis­miss al­le­ga­tions that it pur­pose­ly slow-rolled Breyanzi’s ap­proval to avoid pay­ing out $6.4 bil­lion in con­tin­gent val­ue rights (CVR).

When Bris­tol My­ers put down $74 bil­lion to scoop up Cel­gene back in 2019, liso-cel — the CAR-T lym­phoma treat­ment now mar­ket­ed as Breyanzi — was sup­pos­ed­ly one of the cen­ter­pieces of the deal. Af­ter go­ing back and forth on ne­go­ti­a­tions for about six months, BMS put $6.4 bil­lion in­to a CVR agree­ment that re­quired an FDA ap­proval for Zeposia, Breyanzi and Abec­ma, each by an es­tab­lished date.

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