BioCentury
ARTICLE | Finance

Ebb & Flow

March 14, 2005 8:00 AM UTC

TransForm Pharmaceuticals is the third MPM portfolio company in the past few weeks to be taken out by a large pharma company. The exits could help make MPM's limited partners happy, as the firm gears up to kick off its new fund within about a year.

The financial terms of the deals have been similar - cash purchases for north of $200 million. This time, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) is picking up formulation company TransForm for $230 million. The companies already had a partnership under which TransForm assigned JNJ rights to a novel salt form of topiramate and agreed to do further crystallization experiments on the compound. JNJ markets immediate-release Topamax topiramate to treat epileptic seizures and to prevent migraines...