Amgen has agreed to acquire ChemoCentryx, a San Carlos, California-based bio/pharmaceutical company developing oral drugs to treat autoimmune diseases, inflammatory disorders, and cancer, primarily for orphan and rare diseases, for approximately $3.7 billion.

ChemoCentryx is focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of small- molecule therapeutics that target the chemoattractant system. Discrete chemokine or chemoattractant receptors play a specific role in how certain diseases progress. Each of its drug candidates focuses on a specific chemokine or chemoattractant receptor that blocks the negative inflammatory or suppressive response driven by that particular receptor while leaving the rest of the immune system intact.

ChemoCentryx has one commercial product, Tavneos (avacopan), a drug to treat anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody-associated vasculitis, an umbrella term for a group of multi-system autoimmune diseases with small-vessel inflammation. It was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in October 2021. US sales of Tavneos in the first quarter of 2022 were $5.4 million.

Tavneos is also approved in markets outside the US, including the European Union and Japan. Vifor Fresenius Medical Care Renal Pharma has exclusive rights to commercialize Tavneos outside the US, except in Japan, where Kissei Pharmaceutical holds commercialization rights, and Canada, where Otsuka Canada Pharmaceutical holds commercialization rights.

In addition to Tavneos, ChemoCentryx has three early-stage drug candidates that target chemoattractant receptors in other inflammatory diseases and an oral checkpoint inhibitor for cancer.

The transaction has been unanimously approved by each company’s Board of Directors. The transaction is subject to ChemoCentryx stockholder approval, regulatory approvals, and other customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Source: ChemoCentryx and Amgen