GSK to buy US cancer treatment firm Nuvalent for $10.6bn | GSK
GSK’s new boss Luke Miels has signed one of the British drugmaker’s biggest deals, announcing the $10.6bn (£7.9bn) purchase of a US cancer specialist with a two-stage drug treatment.
The FTSE 100 company is strengthening its oncology portfolio by agreeing to acquire Nuvalent, a Boston-based company that develops cancer drugs, including three for lung cancer.
The deal includes two late-stage next-generation treatments for non-small cell lung cancer that are being reviewed by the US regulator FDA, with decisions expected in September and November.
The drugs, zidesamtinib and neladalkib, are expected to launch later this year, assuming they are approved, and could be multiple blockbusters, each with annual revenues of several billion dollars. Both aim to provide longer-acting treatment with improved tolerability and better quality of life by targeting mutations that cause lung cancer. These mutations affect non-smoking adults aged 40 to 50, mostly women.
It’s the latest in a series of deals Miels has announced since taking over as CEO from Emma Walmsley at the start of the year, and is GSK’s biggest acquisition yet.
The largest deal he was involved in was an asset swap worth approximately $21 billion with Novartis, announced in 2014. GSK acquired the Swiss company’s vaccines division for $5.25 billion and sold its cancer portfolio to Novartis, under then-CEO Andrew Witty, for $16 billion.
Miels, previously GSK’s chief commercial officer, is continuing the oncology push launched by Walmsley in 2017, but the size of the latest deal surprised investors after a string of smaller acquisitions in recent years.
He said: “Today’s acquisition is a multi-product deal consistent with our approach to acquiring assets with clinically proven targets and meaningfully addressing the efficacy and/or tolerability gap. The two lead products are potential best-in-class assets that, if approved by the FDA, could launch this year and provide important new treatment options for patients with two forms of non-small cell lung cancer.”
It said the acquisition provides GSK with immediate new sales growth opportunities, improving profit contributions from 2027 and providing a platform for rapid expansion with a product called Ris-Rez, which is in late-stage clinical development in lung cancer.
GSK hopes Ris-Rez will be able to treat multiple types of cancer and is expected to contribute to its annual sales target of more than £40bn by 2031.
In January, GSK acquired California biotech company RAPT, which is developing a drug to protect against serious food allergies, including nut, milk and egg allergies.
