Lilly Pays $3.2B to Buy Morphic and Deepen Immunology, Gastro Portfolio
Summary
Under the terms of the purchase, Lilly will pay $57 per outstanding share of Morphic, which represents a 79% premium to the biotech’s closing price on Friday. The deal is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2024, subject to regulatory and antitrust clearances and other customary closing conditions, including the tender of a majority of the outstanding shares of Morphic’s common stock. At the center of the acquisition is Morphic’s lead candidate MORF-057, a small molecule inhibitor of the α4β7 integrin that is currently being developed for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). BMO Capital Markets analysts in a Monday note to investors said the Morphic acquisition complements Lilly’s existing efforts in UC and Crohn’s. In June 2023, the pharma snapped up DICE Therapeutics for $2.4 billion, gaining access to its proprietary platform for small-molecule drugs that disrupt protein-protein interactions.