Good Ther­a­peu­tics sells PD-1 IL-2 pro­gram to Roche for $250M and will march on with a sim­i­lar name, but in Latin

There’s Just, and there’s Good.

The first was sold in sum­mer 2019. And the PD-1 IL-2 por­tion of the lat­ter is now en­ter­ing the fold of Roche.

The two biotechs aren’t re­lat­ed, but Good Ther­a­peu­tics founder and CEO John Mul­li­gan “liked the idea of hav­ing Good and Just in Seat­tle,” call­ing his start­up’s moniker a “riff” on the Evotec-ac­quired Just Bio­ther­a­peu­tics.

And now Mul­li­gan, af­ter sev­er­al years of di­a­logue with Roche and about 12 months of “se­ri­ous dis­cus­sions” around M&A, is sell­ing Good Ther­a­peu­tics’ IL-2 pro­gram to the Swiss Big Phar­ma for $250 mil­lion in up­front cash deal. More cap­i­tal could flow Good’s way in the form of de­vel­op­ment, reg­u­la­to­ry and com­mer­cial biobucks. The deal is slat­ed to close this quar­ter, pend­ing merg­er clear­ances.

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