AbbVie Purchases Neuroscience Developer Cerevel for $8.7 billion

Abbvie announced Wednesday purchased Cerevel Therapeutics and its pipeline of experimental neurological and psychiatric medications for $8.7 billion.

The deal marks the second billion-dollar acquisition by AbbVie in under a week. Facing the prospect of declining sales from two of its best-selling drugs, the company also acquired Immunogen and its ovarian cancer treatment for $10 billion last Thursday.

With the buyout, AbbVie will acquire several clinical-stage molecules for Parkinson’s, schizophrenia, and epilepsy, among other disorders, many of which previously belonged to one of the company’s biggest rivals.

The acquisition will bring together AbbVie’s existing neuroscience portfolio—which includes the migraine medicine Qulipta (atogepant)—with Cerevel’s assets, yielding a combined pipeline that “represents a significant growth opportunity well into the next decade,” AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez said in a statement.

“AbbVie will leverage its deep commercial capabilities, international infrastructure, and regulatory and clinical expertise to deliver substantial shareholder value with multibillion-dollar sales potential across Cerevel’s portfolio of assets,” Gonzalez said.

Once the transaction is closed, AbbVie will gain ownership of Cerevel’s late-stage asset emraclidine, a next-generation antipsychotic that is currently completing two registration-enabling Phase II studies in schizophrenia. The candidate is a positive allosteric modulator of the muscarinic M4 receptor with best-in-class potential for the treatment of schizophrenia.

Emraclidine is also being assessed in a Phase I study of healthy elderly adults as part of its development as a treatment for dementia-related psychosis in Alzheimer’s disease.

Aside from emraclidine, AbbVie will also gain access to Cerevel’s Phase III first-in-class asset tavapadon, a selective partial agonist of the dopamine D1/D5 receptors. Tavapadon is being developed as a monotherapy and adjunctive treatment for Parkinson’s disease (PD) and could be a “near-term complementary asset to AbbVie’s existing symptomatic therapies for advanced PD,” according to Wednesday’s announcement.

The deal will also give AbbVie darigabat, a Phase II selective positive allosteric modulator of the alpha 2/3/5 subunits of the GABAA receptor being developed for panic disorder and treatment-resistant epilepsy, as well as CVL-354, a Phase I kappa opioid receptor antagonist with best-in-class potential for major depressive disorder.

The Cerevel acquisition comes one week after AbbVie bought ImmunoGen for $10.1 billion, gaining rights to the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) Elahere (mirvetuximab soravtansine-gynx), which won the FDA’s accelerated approval in November 2022 for the treatment of platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.

AbbVie will also obtain ImmunoGen’s pipeline of investigational ADCs for acute myeloid leukemia and blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm.

Stock closed on January, 3 2024 at:

Stock price: ABBV (NYSE) $160.46 -0.01 (-0.01%)

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Esra Erbilgin Acar

Mrs. Erbilgin Acar is the Marketing and Sales Director and Human Resources for Equal Opportunity for Women and Men.

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