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Coherus BioSciences has reached a deal to sell another one of its biosimilars as part of a plan to make cancer immunotherapies its focus going forward.
The company on Tuesday said it will divest its Udenyca franchise, the name for its copycat version of Amgen’s Neulasta, to India-based drugmaker Intas Pharmaceuticals. Intas has agreed to pay Coherus over $483 million upfront, a figure that’ll be adjusted for the company’s inventory when the sale closes. Coherus could also get another $75 million should the drug hit certain sales targets.
Coherus intends to use a large portion of the funds to pay off $230 million in convertible notes due 2026, and earmarked another roughly $49 million to buy out certain royalty obligations related to the drug. The company will shed other costs in the deal, too, as some employees involved with Udenyca will transfer to Intas, and other overhead as well as commercial expenses will be eliminated.
For Coherus, the deal is the latest step in a rebranding that’s been underway since 2021. Though the company was initially known for its work in biosimilars, it’s since become a player in cancer immunotherapy. A deal for rights to a type of “checkpoint” inhibitor developed by Junshi Biosciences yielded a drug, Loqtorzi, that’s approved for nasopharyngeal carcinoma. An acquisition of Surface Oncology broadened its pipeline, which now includes a handful of experimental drugs in development for a variety of solid tumors. The company hopes to find new uses for Loqtorzi, in part by testing other drugs alongside it.
In parallel, Coherus has been steadily offloading its biosimilars. In January, Coherus divested Cimerli, a biosimliar version of the eye drug Lucentis, for $170 million. The company followed with a $40 million sale of its Humira copycat in June, and now a much larger deal for Udenyca.
“The proposed divestiture of Udenyca represents the successful execution of our strategy to focus R&D and commercial resources on Coherus’ innovative immuno-oncology portfolio and to strengthen our financial position,” said Denny Lanfear, Coherus’ CEO and chairman, in a statement.
Coherus expects the deal to close in the first quarter of 2025. It will provide updated projections on its sales and cash runway next month.
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