That $1.25B Bristol-Myers IDO1 drug? Incyte claims a former staffer stole it
When Bristol-Myers Squibb agreed to pay up to a jaw-dropping $1.25 billion to acquire the fledgling biotech Flexus back in early 2015 for the sole purpose of gaining control of a preclinical IDO1 drug, the math seemed to defy every known standard on overnight biotech windfalls.
The 18-month-old biotech had just lined up a $38 million round from Kleiner Perkins, Celgene and The Column Group. In a world where a 10X payoff after a few years is considered a home run, Bristol-Myers’ $800 million upfront, with $450 million in early-stage milestones, for a drug that had yet to go into humans was done on a whole new level.
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