De­fend­ing its prize fran­chise, Ver­tex forks over $160M cash to grab Con­cert’s sim­pli­fied ver­sion of Ka­ly­de­co

Con­cert Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals’ $CNCE chief claim to fame is us­ing deu­teri­um to re­for­mu­late drugs, stretch­ing ef­fects for pa­tients in ways that make them eas­i­er to use with few­er dos­es. And its mid-stage ef­fort on a longer-act­ing ver­sion of Ver­tex’s Ka­ly­de­co for cys­tic fi­bro­sis was too tempt­ing — or threat­en­ing — to pass up.

Ver­tex an­nounced this morn­ing that it is buy­ing the drug — CTP-656 — for $160 mil­lion in cash and an­oth­er $90 mil­lion in mile­stones, tak­ing over the Phase II tri­al. That’s enough mon­ey to fund Con­cert out an­oth­er four years, and in­vestors ral­lied to the news, dri­ving the biotech’s shares up a whop­ping 78% by mid­day.

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