Global pharmaceutical company AbbVie announced today that it will acquire oncology specialist Stemcentrx and its lead late-stage asset rovalpituzumab tesirine (Rova-T) for $5.8 billion in cash and stock. Stemcentrx investors are also eligible to receive up to $4 billion in cash for additional, success-based milestone payments for the achievement of certain regulatory and clinical developments.
Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Stemcentrx, and Goodwin represented Morgan Stanley in this transaction.
Rova-T is a novel biomarker-specific therapy currently in registrational trials for small cell lung cancer. Registrational trials for third-line small cell lung cancer are expected to complete enrollment by the end of 2016. In addition, Stemcentrx has four novel compounds in clinical trials across several solid tumor indications including triple-negative breast cancer, ovarian cancer and non-small cell lung cancer.
AbbVie is a global, research-based biopharmaceutical company formed in 2013 following separation from Abbott Laboratories. The company’s clinical oncology pipeline is comprised of more than a dozen assets, with 5 programs in late-stage development, spanning nearly 200 clinical trials across more than 19 types of tumors.
The Goodwin team advising Morgan Stanley in this transaction was led by partners Stuart Cable, James Matarese and Kingsley Taft and of counsel Joseph Siegelbaum, and included partner Andrew Goodman and associate Blake Liggio.
To learn more, read AbbVie’s announcement.