Bob Bradway, Amgen CEO (Stephen Lam/Reuters)

Thrills, chills, a fi­nal of­fer from Bob Brad­way and a hard­ball threat from 'Par­ty E': the in­sid­er look at the $4B Chemo­Cen­tryx deal

Back in the spring of 2020, as Chemo­Cen­tryx was prepar­ing to em­bark on the long and com­pli­cat­ed march to an FDA ap­proval for its rare dis­ease drug ava­co­pan, the top team took up a com­mon ex­er­cise. Should the biotech go it alone, mak­ing the tran­si­tion — if the OK came through — to a com­mer­cial op­er­a­tion? Or should it seek out a deal?

And what would that look like?

So be­gan a process that would play out over the next two and a half years, ul­ti­mate­ly lead­ing them to a $3.7 bil­lion buy­out as Am­gen’s Bob Brad­way bid up to $52 a share $CCXI, and then dug in. In be­tween, their share price, which had just spiked in ear­ly 2020, would go on a wild roller coast­er ride, plung­ing a lit­tle more than a year lat­er be­fore ris­ing again. And it’s all spelled out in a back­grounder fil­ing with the SEC.

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.