Shire plc and Dyax Corp announced that Shire will acquire Dyax for $37.30 in cash per Dyax
share, for aggregate upfront consideration of approximately $5.9
billion. Dyax shareholders may receive additional value through a
non-tradable contingent value right (CVR) that will pay $4.00 in cash
per Dyax share upon approval of DX-2930 in HAE, representing a potential
additional $646 million in aggregate contingent consideration.
Dyax
is a publicly traded, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company
primarily focused on the development of plasma kallikrein (pKal)
inhibitors for the treatment of HAE, a debilitating and sometimes
life-threatening rare genetic disease. Dyax has already successfully
developed and commercialized KALBITOR, which is approved for HAE acute
treatment in patients 12 years of age and older, and represented an
early innovation in HAE treatment.
Dyax’s most advanced clinical
program is DX-2930, a Phase 3-ready, fully humanized monoclonal antibody
targeting pKal with proof-of-concept Phase 1B efficacy data. This data
demonstrate a > 90% reduction in HAE attacks compared to placebo in
the 300mg/400mg arms in patients with > 2 attacks in the 3 months prior to study entry.
