Hori­zon nabs an­oth­er rare dis­ease pipeline for the port­fo­lio in $3B buy­out. And As­traZeneca — a fu­ture ri­val — is get­ting about $780M of that

Sev­en months af­ter scor­ing its first FDA ap­proval, As­traZeneca spin­off Viela is be­ing bought out for $3 bil­lion.

Hori­zon an­nounced this morn­ing that it is scoop­ing up the com­pa­ny and its drug Up­liz­na, adding an­oth­er rare dis­ease drug to the port­fo­lio. Viela won an ap­proval for their ther­a­py last sum­mer as a ri­val to Alex­ion’s Soliris — now be­ing bought out by As­traZeneca — for pa­tients suf­fer­ing from neu­romyelitis op­ti­ca spec­trum dis­or­der (NMOSD). Roche fol­lowed soon af­ter with its own OK for their drug En­spryng, which hit the mar­ket at a price of $220,000 for the first year of treat­ment.

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