Sanofi offers to acquire Kiadis

Adds proprietary next generation natural killer (K-NK) cell platform and pipeline of cell-based cancer immune-therapeutics and infectious disease therapies

02-Nov-2020 - Netherlands

Sanofi and Kiadis, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative ‘off the shelf’ natural killer (NK) cell based medicines for the treatment of life-threatening diseases, entered into a definitive agreement under which Sanofi will make a public offer (subject to satisfaction of certain customary conditions) to acquire the entire share capital of Kiadis for EUR 5.45 per share, representing an aggregate adjusted equity value of €308m.

“We believe the Kiadis ‘off the shelf’ K-NK cell technology platform will have broad application against liquid and solid tumors, and create synergies with Sanofi’s emerging immuno-oncology pipeline, providing opportunities for us to pursue potential best-in-disease approaches,” said John Reed, M.D., Ph.D., Global Head of Research & Development at Sanofi.

“Kiadis’ vision is to bring novel cell-based medicines to people with life-threatening diseases, and this transaction will help achieve that vision,” said Arthur Lahr, Chief Executive Officer of Kiadis. “After the discontinuation of our lead product candidate and subsequent reorganization in 2019, we restarted Kiadis in 2020 as an entirely new company focused solely on the proprietary and differentiated NK-cell platform that we obtained through the acquisition of Cytosen Therapeutics. Sanofi’s offer is a clear testimony to the uniqueness of our NK-cell platform and the rapid success of Kiadis’ transformation. The Kiadis Boards unanimously believe that Sanofi has the resources and financial strength to accelerate development of our NK-cell products, to the benefit of patients. We believe this transaction represents compelling value to shareholders and offers a fair reflection of the potential of our platform and pipeline, given the risk/reward profile typical to biotech and the capital required to execute our business plan. Finally, this transaction will provide excellent career opportunities for our employees, who will be viewed by Sanofi as their internal cell-therapy experts.”

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/1168477/sanofi-offers-to-acquire-kiadis.html