Pfizer to acquire blood cancer drugmaker Trillium for €1.93bn

Pfizer, maker of a top-selling Covid vaccine, will buy all the shares of Trillium Therapeutics it doesn’t own, gaining the immune cancer drugmaker for an equity value of $2.26bn (€1.93bn).

Pfizer will pay $18.50 a share for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Trillium, the companies said in a statement. The price represents a 118% premium to the stock’s 60-day weighted average price.

Shares of Trillium nearly tripled, while Pfizer rose as much as 3.6% in early trading on Monday.

Pfizer invested $25m in Trillium in September as part of its Breakthrough Growth Initiative, when Jeff Settleman, senior vice-president of Pfizer’s oncology research and development group, was named to Trillium’s scientific advisory board.

Blood cancers

Trillium’s two lead molecules, TTI-622 and TTI-621, block signalling proteins involved in blood cancers and are both in human trials across several types of disease. They target CD47, a protein found on some cancer cells that cloaks them from the normal immune response, and send a signal activating the response.

Early clinical data for both molecules is encouraging and they’re expected to become another important backbone immunotherapy for multiple types of cancer, especially those of the blood, Chris Boshoff, Pfizer’s chief development officer for oncology, said in the statement.

Blood cancers represent 6% of all tumour diagnoses across the world, according to the statement. Last year, more than 1m people worldwide were diagnosed with a form of blood cancer and more than 700,000 people died from the disease.

Breast cancer

The move follows Pfizer’s July deal with Arvinas to develop and commercialise ARV-471, a drug for breast cancer that degrades the hormone oestrogen. Pfizer agreed to pay Arvinas $650m upfront as well as $1.4bn (in potential milestone payments, along with a $350m equity investment in the biotech.

Pfizer’s oncology portfolio includes 24 approved drugs that yielded about $10.9bn in revenue last year, up 21% operationally from 2019. During the first half of 2021, global oncology revenues were $6bn , up 16% operationally from the period a year earlier, the company said.