Ver­tex strikes $4.9B deal for Alpine, ex­pand­ing work in kid­ney and au­toim­mune dis­ease

Resh­ma Ke­wal­ra­mani is putting Ver­tex’s $10 bil­lion-plus bal­ance sheet to work.

On Wednes­day, the biotech an­nounced it would pay $4.9 bil­lion for Alpine Im­mune Sci­ences and its ex­per­i­men­tal drug povetaci­cept to treat IgA nephropa­thy, a kid­ney dis­ease that’s at­tract­ed in­creas­ing in­ter­est rang­ing from big drug­mak­ers to VCs.

At $65 a share, Ver­tex will pay a sub­stan­tial pre­mi­um for Alpine, whose stock $ALPN closed Tues­day at $37.57. Bloomberg News re­port­ed ear­li­er Wednes­day that Alpine was po­ten­tial­ly ex­plor­ing a sale.

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