Biotech M&A is back. Ipsen set to fork out up to $1.3B for rare dis­ease spe­cial­ist Clemen­tia

Merg­er Mon­day is back in full swing. Along with Roche buy­ing Spark Ther­a­peu­tics $ONCE, Parisian biotech Ipsen (Eu­ronext: $IPN) is beef­ing up its rare dis­ease ar­se­nal by ac­quir­ing Cana­da’s Clemen­tia Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, less than two years af­ter the Mon­tre­al-based drug de­vel­op­er’s $120 mil­lion IPO.

Un­der the terms of the deal, Ipsen will pay $25 per Clemen­tia share — a rough­ly 68% pre­mi­um to its Fri­day close — for a to­tal of $1.04 bil­lion, in ad­di­tion to an­oth­er $6/share if Clemen­tia’s lead ex­per­i­men­tal drug, palo­varotene, can be used to treat a rare bone dis­ease called mul­ti­ple os­teo­chon­dro­mas (MO), which could trans­late to an­oth­er $263 mil­lion.

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