HQ Team
July 8, 2024: Eli Lilly and Company will acquire biopharmaceutical firm, Morphic Holding Inc., for $3.2 billion in cash, giving it access to a molecule inhibitor to treat inflammatory bowel disease.
MORF-057, the inhibitor, is being evaluated in two mid-stage studies in ulcerative colitis and one mid-stage trial in Crohn’s disease. It will expand Lilly’s immunology pipeline with oral integrin therapies, according to a statement from Eli Lilly.
Inhibitors are molecules that can interact with proteins and reduce the biological activity of target proteins. Integrin is a type of protein found on the surface of cells that helps them attach to, and communicate with, nearby cells.
Morphic is also developing a preclinical pipeline of other molecules for treating autoimmune diseases, pulmonary hypertensive diseases, fibrotic diseases and cancer.
$57 a share
The Indianapolis, Indiana-headquartered Lilly will start a tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares of Morphic for a purchase price of $57 per share in cash payable at closing, which is expected to be in the third quarter of 2024.
The purchase price payable at closing represents a premium of approximately 79.0% to the closing stock price on July 5, 2024, and 87.2% to the 30-day volume-weighted average trading price of Morphic’s common stock ended on July 5, 2024.
Lilly will acquire any shares of Morphic that are not tendered in the tender offer through a second-step merger at the same consideration as paid in the tender offer.
Morphic’s lead program is a selective oral small molecule inhibitor of α4β7 integrin for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease that has the potential to improve outcomes and expand treatment options for patients, according to the statement.
The integrin α4β7 binds mostly to the gut-specific adhesion molecule located primarily on intestinal vascular endothelial cells.
New ways to treat IBD
“Oral therapies could open up new possibilities for earlier intervention in diseases like ulcerative colitis, and also provide the potential for combination therapy to help patients with more severe disease,” said Daniel Skovronsky, M.D., Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Lilly and president, Lilly Research Laboratories.
Praveen Tipirneni, M.D., CEO of Morphic Therapeutic said: “We built the Morphic Integrin Technology platform to realize the vast opportunity of integrin therapeutics. MORF-057 is a tremendous example of those efforts, an oral small molecule α4β7 inhibitor with the potential to be well tolerated and efficacious, attributes that could unlock new possibilities in IBD treatment.”
