March 26, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
NEW YORK -- Synergy Pharmaceuticals, maker of drugs for gastrointestinal disorders, may be up for sale, Bloomberg Business news reported this afternoon.
Potential sales news has positively impacted the company’s stock, which was trading as high as $4.40 per share today, up from its Wednesday close of $3.83 per share, a 9 percent bump. Trading has settled somewhat, with the stock now trading at $4.04 per share.
Citing inside sources, Bloomberg reported officers at Synergy are exploring a possible sale after competing company Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. agreed to be acquired earlier this month. Salix was bought for $11 billion by Canadian-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. . Salix markets Xifaxan, a drug used to treat traveler’s diarrhea as well as reduce risk of the recurrence of overt hepatic encephalopathy in patients with advanced liver disease. The medication could also be used as a treatment for irritable bowel syndrome, if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives final approval.
Plecanatide, Synergy’s lead drug, and its next-generation candidate, SP-333, are proprietary analogs of the gastrointestinal hormone, uroguanylin, which regulates normal functions of the digestive tract. Orally administered mimics uroguanylin’s functions by binding to and activating the GC-C receptor to stimulate fluid and ion transit required for normal bowel function. Plecanatide is in late stage clinical trials for chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) and irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C). SP-333 is currently in clinical trials for opioid-induced constipation (OIC) and is also being studied for treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC), according to the company’s website.
Bloomberg reported a sale of Synergy will likely hinge on results of a late-stage trial of plecanatide, which are expected in May. met its endpoints in earlier clinical trials. Synergy plans to file its first new drug application for plecanatide with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the fourth quarter of this year.
Plecanatide would compete with other GI drugs such as Ironwood Pharmaceuticals ’s Linzess, which is used to treat chronic constipation and irritable bowel syndrome. Bloomberg reported plecanatide demonstrated “better diarrhea rates in mid-stage trials” than Linzess.
Synergy has a Wall Street price target of $8.50 with a high target of $10, according to market analysts at Wall Street Pit. Synergy has a debt of about $200 million, Bloomberg reported.
There have been numerous rounds of pharmaceutical companies being snapped up by larger entities in order to shore up drug pipelines, with nearly $400 billion spent in acquisitions since 2014.
BioSpace Temperature Poll
U.K.-based GlaxoSmithKline filed a WARN letter in late February with the state of Pennsylvania indicating another 150 people would be laid off in its commercial and research and development group near Philadelphia. BioSpace wants to know if you think Pharm Country will do what it takes to keep biotech jobs in the area?
