AbbVie to buy cancer drugmaker ImmunoGen for $10bn

NEW YORK: AbbVie will buy ImmunoGen for $10.1 billion in cash, it said on Thursday, the latest major drugmaker to buy a developer of ‘guided missile’ cancer therapies as the company’s top-seller Humira grapples with fierce competition.

ImmunoGen’s Elahere belongs to a new class of treatments called antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) that precisely targets cancer cells, potentially reducing toxicity for other cells. The drug, approved for ovarian cancer patients who have received previous therapies, is also being tested in earlier lines of treatment. Elahere generated $212 million in sales for the nine months ended September.

Interest in ADC-makers have surged over the past year. Pfizer is in the middle of buying ADC pioneer Seagen in a $43 billion deal while Merck last month said it would pay Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo $5.5 billion to jointly develop three ADCs.