Blueprint Medicines knows a thing or two about lung cancer, with one approved medicine already in the bag through a partnership with Roche. Now, the biopharma is making a $250 million play to add another candidate with the acquisition of Lengo Therapeutics.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Blueprint will gain a preclinical asset through the deal, which Lengo hopes will be approved by the FDA for human studies before New Year's.
The deal could balloon another $215 million in biobucks based on certain milestones for the development of LNG-451. But given the therapy is not yet in human testing, it could be awhile before those dollars are paid out. The lead candidate is an oral precision treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations.
This type of mutation is the second most common oncogenic driver in NSCLC, which means it initiates and maintains cancer. Blueprint said that about 12% of activating EGFR mutations are exon 20 insertions—meaning this is a pretty rare cancer. Exon 20 is rarer than the so-called “classical” EGFR activating mutations exon 19 and exon 21, which combined comprise about 85% of EGFR mutations in lung cancer.
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But treatments for very specific types of cancer with unmet need is Lengo's sweet spot, Blueprint CEO Jeff Albers said in a statement.
"The Lengo team has done tremendous work in designing a highly selective therapeutic candidate tailored to the needs of patients with EGFR exon 20 lung cancer, including features with the potential to enable treatment or prevention of brain metastases," Albers said.
Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical unit Janssen received accelerated approval of its Rybrevant bispecific antibody for this specific mutation in May. The drug shrank tumors in 40% of patients with the exon 20 mutation in a phase 2 trial in January.
Blueprint already has an approved NSCLC drug, with partner Roche, for patients who have a RET fusion-positive form of the condition. The FDA approved that treatment, Gavreto, last September. Roche took over U.S. product sale responsibilities of Gavreto in July and reported $5.5 million in net product revenues.
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Blueprint's deal comes after a Lengo hiring spree in recent months.
The latest snag was Pfizer veteran Brion Murray, Ph.D., as SVP of research. Others include Paul Pearson, Ph.D., as chief of development; Eric Gruff, Ph.D., as SVP and principal accounting officer; and Diana Hausman, M.D., as chief medical officer.
While M&A had a relatively slow start to the year, deals have picked up in recent months across biopharma, with Twist's $190 million acquisition of Abveris and Sanifit's $231 million Vifor buyout both happening last week. Novo Nordisk's $3.3 billion Dicerna buy made waves the week prior.