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Amgen has bought cancer biotech Dark Blue Therapeutics in a deal that could be worth as much as $840mn, marking the latest purchase of a UK-based company by a US pharmaceutical group.
The Dark Blue deal is Amgen’s latest foray into oncology, where it has a number of assets in various stages of development. The US Food and Drug Administration approved tarlatamab-dlle, a treatment for extensive stage small cell lung cancer, last November.
Dark Blue’s key work focuses on a biological mechanism that targets and degrades two proteins that drive specific types of acute myeloid leukaemia — a fast-growing and aggressive blood and bone marrow cancer where abnormal myeloid cells multiply.
Dark Blue chief executive Alastair MacKinnon told the Financial Times that the firm, which was spun out of an Oxford university incubator in 2022, had received “a number of approaches and conversations” about potential licensing deals or acquisitions.
It decided to go with Amgen because the US group had a “clear vision” about what its treatment could achieve, he added.
Dark Blue’s investigational molecule is yet to enter clinical trials, but MacKinnon said it was on the “cusp” of doing so: “The unmet medical need lends itself to rapid clinical progress.” Its shareholders “found the economics of the deal very attractive”, he said.
Jay Bradner, Amgen’s executive vice-president of research and development, said in a statement that it bought Dark Blue because it saw an “urgent need for new mechanisms capable of changing the trajectory” of acute myeloid leukaemia.
“This acquisition complements and extends our research in targeted protein degradation and leukaemia therapeutics, advancing our strategy to invest early in rising medicines for novel therapeutic targets,” Bradner said. New York-listed Amgen is valued at $173bn.
The deal marks the latest acquisition of a UK-based biotech or research by a US pharma company. Merck bought lung disease-focused biotech Verona Pharma for $10bn last year.
Metsera, which was the subject of a bidding war between Novo Nordisk and Pfizer late last year, has a leading obesity drug candidate spun out of research from Imperial College in London. Metsera paid $114mn in 2023 for research that became the backbone of its sale to Pfizer, which ultimately fetched $10bn.
“The quality of the science in the UK is world class,” MacKinnon said. “Pharma companies look globally and it’s testament to the academic excellence of the UK that the number of deals you see here is disproportionate to its size. Would we like to see more things get to later stage here? Of course.”
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