Will a 'risk-of­f' mind­set has­ten cell ther­a­py M&A? Io­vance surges on buy­out chat­ter

Is it time for some cell ther­a­py M&A?

In­vestors of Io­vance Bio­ther­a­peu­tics cer­tain­ly thought so, send­ing its stock $IO­VA up as much as 40% af­ter Bloomberg re­port­ed that the can­cer-fo­cused biotech is talk­ing to po­ten­tial buy­ers.

While 2019 saw a num­ber of high-pro­file gene ther­a­py com­pa­ny takeovers — led by Roche’s $4.3 bil­lion bid of Spark as Astel­las went for Au­dentes, Bio­gen snapped up Night­star and Ver­tex ab­sorbed Ex­on­ics — large play­ers ap­peared to pre­fer part­ner­ing on the cell ther­a­py front, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to can­cer. Hal Bar­ron put his weight be­hind Rick Klaus­ner’s start­up as he re­built Glax­o­SmithK­line’s can­cer pipeline. Take­da turned to MD An­der­son to li­cense their nat­ur­al killer cell ther­a­py.

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