Play­ing the long game in I/O, J&J inks $1.04B deal to buy on­colyt­ic virus plat­form biotech BeneVir

J&J $JNJ is bring­ing a low-pro­file biotech — and some ear­ly-stage on­colyt­ic virus­es — in­to its fold, ce­ment­ing its im­muno-on­col­o­gy pipeline with some nascent tech­nolo­gies that it be­lieves will be trans­for­ma­tion­al.

Janssen, J&J’s biotech arm, is pay­ing $140 mil­lion up­front to ac­quire BeneVir in a deal that car­ries a string of ad­di­tion­al mile­stone pay­ments up to $900 mil­lion. Though the on­colyt­ic virus­es it just bagged are still pre­clin­i­cal can­di­dates, look­ing down the road, Janssen be­lieves they can treat sol­id tu­mor can­cers both as stand­alone ther­a­pies and in com­bos.

Endpoints News

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.