Celgene is snapping up Gloucester Pharmaceuticals in a deal worth up to $640 million. Investors will get $340 million of that upfront and up to $300 million more as Gloucester's newly approved therapy for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma is rolled out around the world.
Gloucester won approval for Istodax, which is used to treat a form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, in November. Celgene will now be responsible for the U.S. marketing rollout as well as European approval. And Celgene also plans to pursue research into the drug's other uses. Celgene plans to release new data on its flagship drug Revlimid later today.
"We are thrilled with this transaction because Celgene's global leadership in the development and commercialization of innovative treatments for hematologic diseases makes them ideally suited to bring the clinical benefits of Istodax to patients with CTCL," said Alan Colowick, M.D., the CEO of Gloucester Pharmaceuticals.
Cambridge, MA-based Gloucester was founded six years ago around a plan to acquire experimental cancer therapies and advance them to an approval. Gloucester also has two combination drug programs in the clinic for multiple myeloma and solid tumors.
- check out the press release
- here's the report from TheStreet