The Laval biopharmaceutical Bellus Santé announced on Tuesday its sale to the British giant GSK, a transaction valued at 2 billion US.
GSK is offering US$14.75 per share to buy Bellus, which conducts advanced research to treat chronic cough.
On NASDAQ, Bellus shares — which also trade in Toronto — closed Monday’s session up 3% at $7.26.
It is estimated that 28 million patients suffer from chronic cough, of which 10 million patients worldwide and 6 million patients in the United States and the European Union have suffered from refractory chronic cough for more than one year.
Bellus’ flagship product – camlipixant – is developed to treat chronic refractory cough, that is, a cough that has persisted for more than eight weeks despite appropriate treatment.
Leaders point out that there are still no approved drugs for refractory chronic cough in the United States and the European Union.
Bellus big boss Roberto Bellini says the deal with GSK recognizes the value of the product the company has developed so far. “GSK is the ideal company to rapidly deliver camlipixant to the millions of chronic intractable cough sufferers around the world,” he said in a statement.
Roberto Bellini is the son of entrepreneur Francesco Bellini, the doctor behind the great success of BioChem Pharma in the 90s.
Francesco Bellini co-founded BioChem Pharma in 1986 before it was sold to Shire for $6 billion in 2001. He later turned to Neurochem, which was trying to develop a drug for Alzheimer’s. After a good start, Neurochem took a nosedive on the stock market in 2007 after US authorities deemed the results obtained insufficient to treat Alzheimer’s. Neurochem subsequently changed its name to Bellus Health.
