The pharma titan adds an intriguing blood pressure medication to its line up with a buyout of CinCor.
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AstraZeneca has inked a definitive agreement to acquire cardiorenal disease player CinCor Pharma in a deal that could potentially reach $1.8 billion in total value, the companies announced Monday.
AstraZeneca will gain the rights to CinCor’s aldosterone synthase inhibitor candidate baxdrostat through this transaction. Baxdrostat is being investigated as a treatment to lower blood pressure in patients with treatment-resistant hypertension.
Additionally, the drug is being trialed as a potential treatment for primary aldosteronism and chronic kidney disease.
AstraZeneca is looking to combine baxdrostat with its blockbuster diabetes drug Farxiga (dapagliflozin). Farxiga is a first-in-class oral SGLT2 inhibitor that, like baxdrostat, has strong cardiorenal therapeutic activity. Farxiga is also approved for heart failure and chronic kidney disease.
In a prepared statement, Mene Pangalos, executive vice president of BioPharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca, said that baxdrostat’s mechanism of action strengthens the company’s cardiorenal disease pipeline.
“Excess levels of aldosterone are associated with hypertension and several cardiorenal diseases, including chronic kidney disease and coronary artery disease” he said, adding that by effectively reducing aldosterone concentrations, baxdrostat “would offer a much-needed treatment option” for patients with these conditions.
Per the terms of the deal, AstraZeneca will acquire all outstanding CinCor shares at a per-share cash price of $26.00, representing a 121% premium to CinCor’s closing market price as of Friday. The agreement also includes a non-tradable contingent value right of $10.00 per share, which is payable upon certain regulatory milestones.
In total, AstraZeneca is pledging $1.3 billion in upfront cash payments. If the contingent value right is achieved, the deal value could balloon to approximately $1.8 billion, which is a 206% premium relative to CinCor’s closing price last Friday. The deal has reportedly been unanimously approved by CinCor’s Board of Directors.
Bolstering a Blockbuster
Farxiga is one of AstraZeneca’s best-performing assets, hitting blockbuster status in 2019, when the drug first hit more than $1 billion in annual sales.
Sales have remained strong for the diabetes drug. In Q3 of 2022 alone, the drug racked up over $1 billion in global sales for AstraZeneca. Last year, Farxiga raked in more than $3 billion in sales.
Beyond sales, the drug continues to notch important clinical wins. In August, Farxiga became the first drug to show a survival benefit for all forms of heart failure, according to a pre-specified pooled analysis of the Phase III DAPA-HF and DELIVER trials. These results were presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2022 and published in Nature Medicine.
