British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline on Tuesday snapped up US biopharmaceutical firm Affinivax for up to $3.3 billion, expanding further into vaccines before the demerger of its consumer health care arm.
The London-listed company has agreed to pay $2.1 billion upfront and up to $1.2 billion in potential development milestones for Affinivax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGSK plc today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Affinivax, Inc,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAffinivax is pioneering the development of a novel class of vaccines, the most advanced of which are next-generation pneumococcal vaccines,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm specialises in vaccines for diseases including meningitis, pneumonia and bloodstream infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe proposed acquisition further strengthens our vaccines research and development (R&D) pipeline, provides access to a new, potentially disruptive technology, and broadens GSK\u2019s existing scientific footprint in the Boston area,\u201d said GSK\u2019s chief scientific officer Hal Barron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe look forward to working with the many talented people at Affinivax to combine our industry-leading development, manufacturing, and commercialisation capabilities to make this exciting new technology available to those in need,\u201d added Barron, who is also the group\u2019s president of R&D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The acquisitions come as chief executive Emma Walmsley seeks to reshape GSK after she faced fierce investor criticism over the company\u2019s delay in producing Covid jabs and treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glaxo last month bought US group Sierra Oncology, a specialist in medicines for rare forms of cancer, for $1.9 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GSK is meanwhile in the process of demerging its consumer health care arm Haleon \u2014 a joint venture with US peer Pfizer \u2014 to concentrate on its main pharmaceutical business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glaxo has been slammed by activist investors over its failure to swiftly produce a successful Covid vaccine, in stark contrast with Anglo-Swedish rival AstraZeneca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Affinivax purchase is expected to complete in the third quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GSK shares climbed 0.6 percent in early Tuesday morning deals to 1,739.07 pence on London\u2019s rising stock market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline on Tuesday snapped up US biopharmaceutical firm Affinivax for up to $3.3 billion, expanding further into vaccines before the demerger of its consumer health care arm.The London-listed company has agreed to pay $2.1 billion upfront and up to $1.2 billion in potential development milestones for Affinivax. \u201cGSK plc today announced that it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsstarlet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsstarlet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsstarlet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsstarlet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsstarlet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsstarlet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1205,"href":"https:\/\/newsstarlet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions\/1205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsstarlet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsstarlet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsstarlet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}