Deals Report: AZ buys Amolyt for Phase III asset, Novartis takes out IFM Due

At least two pharmas announced deals to acquire biotechs in the past week, while third entered a discovery partnership worth up to $1 billion.

In one of the largest takeouts ever of a French biotech, AstraZeneca plc (LSE:AZN; NASDAQ:AZN) said it would acquire  Amolyt Pharma S.A.S. for $800 million up front, and up to $1.05 billion total. The deal, whose size trails only the $3.9 billion acquisition of Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. by Novartis AG (SIX:NOVN; NYSE:NVS) in 2017, would add a late-stage endocrinology asset to AstraZeneca’s pipeline. PTH1R agonist eneboparatide is in Phase III trials for hypoparathyroidism, with results due in November, according to ClinicalTrials.gov. ...