AstraZeneca Reaches Deal to Buy Icosavax. The Vaccine Stock Soars 47%.

Icosavax
stock soared 47% in Tuesday premarket trading after the Seattle-based vaccine developer reached a deal to be acquired by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.

Shares in
AstraZeneca
advanced 1.8% in the U.S. premarket after the group agreed to acquire Icosavax for approximately $1.1 billion in a cash deal expected to close in the first quarter of next year. The acquisition values Icosavax at $15 a share, a healthy premium to the stock’s closing price of $10.49 Monday.

Icosavax is developing a potential vaccine, called IVX-A12, for two common respiratory diseases that are leading causes of respiratory infection and hospitalization among adults 60 years of age and older: respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and human metapneumovirus (hMPV).

There are currently no treatments of preventative therapies for hMPV, the groups said, and no combination vaccines for RSV. Phase two trial data has demonstrated that IVX-A12 elicits robust immune responses against both diseases.

“This virus-like particle vaccine technology has the potential to transform prevention against severe infectious diseases, including RSV and hMPV,” Iskra Reic, AstraZeneca’s executive vice president of vaccines and immune therapies, said in a statement. “With the addition of Icosavax’s Phase III-ready lead asset to our late-stage pipeline, we will have a differentiated, advanced investigational vaccine, and a platform for further development of combination vaccines against respiratory viruses.”

The acquisition marks the latest deal in the red-hot biotech and pharmaceutical space.
AbbVie
last Wednesday announced its second major deal in as many weeks as it moved to buy
Cerevel Therapeutics,
and biotech deals in particular have heated up into the end of the year, boding well for deal momentum into 2024.

Write to Jack Denton at [email protected]

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