Merck (NYSE: MRK) acquired Eyebiotech Limited, a London, UK-based ophthalmology-focused biotechnology company, for up to USD3 Billion.
Under the terms of the agreement, Merck, through a subsidiary, will acquire all outstanding shares of EyeBio for up to $3 Billion, including an upfront payment of $1.3 Billion in cash and a further potential $1.7 Billion in developmental, regulatory and commercial milestone payments.
With the acquisition, Merck will expand its offerings.
Led by CEO Dr. David R. Guyer, EyeBio is developing a pipeline of clinical and preclinical candidates for the prevention and treatment of vision loss associated with retinal vascular leakage, a known risk factor for retinal diseases. The company’s lead candidate, Restoret™ (EYE103), is an investigational, potentially first-in-class tetravalent, tri-specific antibody that acts as an agonist of the Wingless-related integration site (Wnt) signaling pathway. Based on positive results from the open-label Phase 1b/2a AMARONE study in patients with diabetic macular edema (DME) and neovascular age-related macular degeneration (NVAMD), Restoret is anticipated to advance into a pivotal Phase 2b/3 trial to investigate the treatment of patients with DME in the second half of 2024.
To date, EyeBio has raised $130m. SV Health Investors (Kate Bingham, DBE and Mike Ross, Ph.D.) founded and seeded the company in August 2021 and were joined in February 2022 by co-leads Samsara BioCapital (Srini Akkaraju, M.D., Ph.D.), Jeito Capital (Andreas Wallnoefer, Ph.D.) in raising a $65 million Series A financing round, with funds from MRL Ventures Fund (Olga Danilchanka, Ph.D.), the corporate venture arm of Merck. In November 2023, the Series A round was expanded to $130 million with the addition of new investors Bain Capital Life Sciences (Leonard Feiner (M.D., Ph.D., and Amir Zamani, M.D.), Omega Funds (Bernard Davitian) and Vertex Ventures HC (Christine Brennan, Ph.D.).
FinSMEs
29/05/2024