Overview
- BioMarin agreed to pay $275 million upfront for Alesta with up to $215 million in contingent development and regulatory milestone payments and expects the transaction to close this quarter.
- ALE1 is an oral Phase 1/2 candidate for hypophosphatasia that Alesta says works on a novel target to lower inorganic pyrophosphate, a metabolite central to HPP pathology.
- Before closing, Alesta will spin out a separate company that will take the start-up’s remaining, unnamed program and its employees.
- BioMarin said the deal will be paid from cash on hand and warned the acquisition will reduce near-term per-share earnings with updated guidance to follow after close.
- The deal continues BioMarin’s recent M&A push in rare skeletal diseases and offers the potential for a first oral HPP treatment but carries normal early-stage clinical and commercial risk for ALE1 and uncertainty about the true patient pool beyond the roughly 9,000 diagnosed U.S. cases.