After spying blockbuster potential in Longboard Pharmaceuticals’ epilepsy med, brain disease-focused pharma Lundbeck is scooping up the biotech for $2.5 billion.
At the heart of the buyout is bexicaserin, a 5-HT2C receptor agonist that sent the California biotech’s shares skyrocketing in January when it was shown to halve the number of seizures across a group of difficult epilepsy disorders in an early-stage trial.
Lundbeck was clearly impressed and has now agreed to buy Longboard for $60 per share, significantly above the $38.90 that the biotech’s stock closed out at on Friday. This works out as a cash price tag of $2.5 billion, Lundbeck explained in an Oct. 14 release.
Lundbeck CEO Charl van Zyl said the acquisition is part of the Danish drugmaker’s broader Focused Innovator strategy. The strategy has already seen the company passing over the U.S. rights for the depression drug Trintellix to its partner Takeda in the summer in order to “create financial flexibility and reallocate resources to other growth opportunities.”
“This transformative transaction will become a cornerstone in Lundbeck’s neuro-rare franchise, with a potential to drive growth into the next decade,” van Zyl said in this morning’s release. “Bexicaserin addresses a critical unmet need for patients suffering from rare and severe epilepsies, for which there are very few good treatment options available.”
Longboard CEO Kevin Lind said in the same release that Lundbeck’s “remarkable capabilities will accelerate our vision to provide increased equity and access for underserved [developmental and epileptic encephalopathies patients] with significant unmet medical needs.”
Bexicaserin entered a phase 3 trial for seizures associated with Dravet syndrome in participants aged two years and older in September, while the open-label extension of the phase 1b/2a trial in rare epilepsy disorders like Dravet and also Lennox-Gastaut syndrome is ongoing.
Lundbeck is eyeing a launch for bexicaserin in the final quarter of 2028, with hopes of global peak sales landing between $1.5 billion and $2 billion. If everything goes to plan, today’s acquisition should “complement Lundbeck’s mid- to late-stage pipeline and diversify revenue growth,” the company said in the release.
In an interview back in January, recently appointed CEO van Zyl told Fierce Pharma that the approach to M&A under his leadership would be “programmatic" and "systemic,” potentially including a series of “two or three” deals that build on Lundbeck’s existing strengths and enable it to balance its pipeline.