On a spree, Al­ler­gan forks over a big pre­mi­um to nab Vi­tae’s au­toim­mune drugs for $639M

Al­ler­gan’s buy­out spree con­tin­ued to­day, this time with a deal to bag Vi­tae Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals $VTAE for $21 a share, or $639 mil­lion in cash.

That’s a big pre­mi­um for a com­pa­ny that had a mar­ket cap at $226 mil­lion Tues­day evening. Its stock closed yes­ter­day at $8.10.

The buy­out gives Al­ler­gan a small pipeline of drugs in­tend­ed to dis­rupt the high­ly com­pet­i­tive au­toim­mune dis­ease field. Its lead clin­i­cal drug is a RO­Ryt in­hibitor dubbed VTP-43742, which we heard of last March when some fret­ting over po­ten­tial safe­ty is­sues bad­ly dent­ed the biotech’s share price. The IL-17 drug just wrapped a Phase II study for pso­ri­a­sis — which may well have pro­vid­ed the proof-of-con­cept da­ta Al­ler­gan likes to look for — and is al­so in­tend­ed for oth­er re­lat­ed con­di­tions.

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