Sanofi offers to acquire Kiadis for €308 million
Congratulations to Kiadis Pharma on recently announcing that it is being acquired by Sanofi in a deal valued at approximately €308m ($359m), a 272% premium over last week’s closing price, one of the largest premiums in European biotech. After the discontinuation of its lead product candidate and subsequent reorganization in 2019, Kiadis started 2020 as an entirely new company focused solely on the proprietary and differentiated NK-cell platform that was obtained through the acquisition of CytoSen Therapeutics. The company has made incredible strides in a very short period of time progressing its pipeline of NK-cell therapies and licensing deal with Sanofi.
Sanofi believes Kiadis’ ‘off the shelf’ K-NK cell technology platform will have broad application against liquid and solid tumors, and create synergies with Sanofi’s emerging immuno-oncology pipeline, providing opportunitie to pursue potential best-in-disease approaches. Sanofi’s research, development, manufacturing and commercial expertise will be leveraged to advance Kiadis’ pipeline, which includes NK-cell-based medicines for the treatment of patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplant, liquid and solid tumors, as well as infectious disease.
Kiadis’ vision is to bring novel cell-based medicines to people with life-threatening diseases, and this transaction will help achieve that vision, while providing career opportunities for Kiadis employees, who will be viewed by Sanofi as their internal cell-therapy experts.
The deal is truly a testament to the team’s hard work and its exciting NK-cell platform. Kudos to Kiadis Pharma!