Al­ways on the look­out for the next thing to buy, Ther­mo Fish­er Sci­en­tif­ic has set­tled on an on­col­o­gy di­ag­nos­tic play­er for its lat­est ac­qui­si­tion.

The life sci­ences con­glom­er­ate is shelling out $2.6 bil­lion (£2.25 bil­lion) to ac­quire The Bind­ing Site Group from a group of pri­vate eq­ui­ty in­vestors, in­te­grat­ing a suite of di­ag­nos­tic as­says and in­stru­ments for blood can­cers and im­mune sys­tem dis­or­ders in­to its spe­cial­ty di­ag­nos­tics busi­ness.

In par­tic­u­lar, Ther­mo Fish­er high­light­ed The Bind­ing Site’s tests for mul­ti­ple myelo­ma di­ag­no­sis and mon­i­tor­ing as a stand­out prod­uct.

With a broad mis­sion of serv­ing sci­ence, Ther­mo Fish­er has been steadi­ly bring­ing small­er bio­phar­ma ser­vice providers un­der its um­brel­la, from in­stru­ments to con­tract re­search or­ga­ni­za­tions to man­u­fac­tur­ers to com­pan­ion di­ag­nos­tics — even as it kept ex­pand­ing in­ter­nal ca­pa­bil­i­ties and open­ing new man­u­fac­tur­ing sites. Last De­cem­ber, it com­plet­ed its largest deal to date: a $17.4 bil­lion buy­out of the CRO PPD. Weeks lat­er, it al­so bagged Pe­pro­Tech, a man­u­fac­tur­er of re­com­bi­nant pro­teins.

When asked about the deal pipeline dur­ing a Q2 call, CEO Marc Casper re­spond­ed:

Yes. So from a cap­i­tal de­ploy­ment per­spec­tive, I re­al­ly want­ed to do the deep­er dive on the progress of PPD, and we did a large ac­qui­si­tion in De­cem­ber, right? And the first thing we have to demon­strate is that we’re great own­ers and op­er­a­tors of the busi­ness­es that are part of the fam­i­ly, and that’s al­ways our No. 1 pri­or­i­ty, and that busi­ness is per­form­ing great. And we have an ac­tive pipeline.

And when I think about how val­u­a­tions have come in many sec­tors, that cre­ates op­por­tu­ni­ties, right? So we’re ac­tive­ly en­gaged as we al­ways are, and we’re well-po­si­tioned to cap­i­tal­ize on the M&A op­por­tu­ni­ties that will be out there in the land­scape.

Just days ago, Casper re­it­er­at­ed the im­por­tance of “strate­gic M&A” to his cap­i­tal de­ploy­ment strat­e­gy.

Ther­mo Fish­er ex­pects The Bind­ing Site to con­tribute $220 mil­lion of rev­enue in 2022 — mod­est rel­a­tive to its own pro­jec­tion of $43.8 bil­lion over­all — but ex­ecs are ea­ger to bring what they say is a “large and ded­i­cat­ed” group of cus­tomers on board.

“The Bind­ing Site is ex­treme­ly well-re­spect­ed by re­searchers and clin­i­cians alike for its pi­o­neer­ing di­ag­no­sis and mon­i­tor­ing so­lu­tions for mul­ti­ple myelo­ma,” Casper said in a state­ment. “We al­so know ear­ly di­ag­no­sis and well-in­formed treat­ment de­ci­sions for mul­ti­ple myelo­ma can make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in pa­tient out­comes.”

Head­quar­tered in Birm­ing­ham, UK, The Bind­ing Site was for­mer­ly owned by a group led by the pri­vate eq­ui­ty firm Nordic Cap­i­tal. It em­ploys 1,100 em­ploy­ees glob­al­ly.

Dupixent, the blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug from Sanofi and Regeneron, has cleared a high-stakes Phase III study in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the companies announced Thursday morning.

If they hold up in a second, identical trial, the data pave the way for Dupixent to become the first biologic to treat patients whose COPD remains uncontrolled despite being on maximal standard-of-care inhaled therapy — the patient population studied in the pivotal program. The companies had spotlighted this as a key readout as they look to expand the Dupixent franchise and explore its full potential.

Incyte touted an accelerated approval for its PD-1 retifanlimab in a rare skin cancer on Wednesday, roughly a year and a half after the drug suffered a rejection in squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal (SCAC).

Retifanlimab, marketed as Zynyz, was approved for metastatic or recurrent locally advanced Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a fast-growing skin cancer typically characterized by a single, painless nodule. It’s roughly 40 times rarer than melanoma, according to the nonprofit Skin Cancer Foundation — but incidence is growing, particularly among older adults, Incyte said in its announcement.

Novartis is calling off a UK-based trial for Leqvio in the primary prevention of cardiovascular events in patients with high cholesterol, the company confirmed on Wednesday.

The Swiss pharma giant made the decision after “careful evaluation,” a spokesperson told Endpoints News via email. The trial, dubbed ORION-17, was planned in partnership with England’s National Health Service (NHS) and was part of the company’s strategy to establish Leqvio as a standard of care in cardiovascular disease management.