Nuvation Bio to Acquire AnHeart Therapeutics in All-Stock Transaction, Strengthening Late-Stage Oncology Pipeline

On March 25, Nuvation Bio acquired Baoyuan Pharma in an all-stock transaction. Shareholders of Baoyuan Pharma will hold a 33% stake, while existing shareholders of Nuvation Bio will retain a 67% stake. The acquisition is scheduled to be completed in the second quarter of 2024.

Under the agreement, the acquisition will be conducted as an all-stock transaction. Upon completion of the acquisition, shareholders of Baoyuan Medicine will hold approximately 33% of Nuvation Bio’s shares, while existing shareholders of Nuvation Bio will hold approximately 67% of Nuvation Bio’s shares on a fully diluted basis.

Nuvation Bio will continue to be led by its existing management team, including its founder, CEO, and President, David Hung. It is expected that employees of Baoyuan Medicine in China and the United States will join the Nuvation Bio team. Upon completion of the acquisition, Dr. Cui Xiangmin, Founding and Managing Partner of Desheng Capital, an investor in Baoyuan Medicine, and Dr. Wang Junyuan, Co-founder and CEO of Baoyuan Medicine, will join the Board of Directors of Nuvation Bio.

Nuvation Bio stated in its press release that the parties intend to treat the acquisition as a tax-free reorganization. Following the acquisition, Nuvation Bio, as the parent company of Baoyuan Pharmaceutical, will own all of Baoyuan Pharmaceutical’s assets.

Baoyuan Pharma was founded in 2018 and has a core pipeline consisting of taletrectinib and safusidenib.Among them,Taletrectinib is a next-generation ROS1 inhibitor., it is currently undergoing two pivotal Phase II clinical trials to evaluate its efficacy in patients with ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC): the TRUST-I trial in China (NCT04395677) and the global pivotal TRUST-II trial (NCT04919811). The drug has been granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation by both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) of China. The NMPA has accepted and granted taletrectinib priority review status for the treatment of adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic ROS1-positive NSCLC, regardless of prior treatment with ROS1 tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). In June 2021, Innovent Biologics and Turning Point Therapeutics entered into an exclusive license agreement to jointly develop and commercialize taletrectinib in Greater China (including mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan).

Baoyuan Pharma’s other new drug, safusidenib, is a novel, selective, and potent oral mIDH1 inhibitor, currently being evaluated in a Phase II trial for IDH1-mutant glioma.

Nuvation Bio will continue to advance the development of two key pipelines from Baoyuan Pharma following the acquisition.

Nuvation Bio was founded in 2018, and its proprietary portfolio includes oncology therapeutic candidates with unique mechanisms of action, each targeting some of the most difficult-to-treat cancer types. Currently,Nuvation Bio will continue to advance all clinical studies of its internal candidate drugs, including the Phase Ib study of NUV-868 and the recently initiated Phase I/II study of NUV-1511.

Also noteworthy in this acquisition is Dr. David Hung, founder of Nuvation Bio. Prior to founding Nuvation Bio, he established Medivation, which delivered innovative prostate cancer therapies to patients and was successfully acquired by Pfizer for nearly $14 billion in 2016. Following the acquisition of Medivation, Dr. Hung joined Axovant, a neuroscience company spun off from its parent firm Roivant and led by Vivek Ramaswamy, a young entrepreneur adept at leveraging media. However, Axovant’s unpromising product pipeline dealt a severe blow to the company. Dr. Hung then decided to return to his more familiar field of oncology, quietly laying the groundwork to found Nuvation Bio. The company completed a $275 million Series A financing round in October 2019 and went public in 2021 through a merger with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Panacea Acquisition Corp. This trajectory has earned Dr. Hung a reputation in the industry as a “Midas touch.”

The acquisition of Baoyuan Pharmaceuticals will mark a significant milestone for Nuvation Bio, transforming it into an oncology pharmaceutical company with a late-stage clinical pipeline.

David Hung, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Nuvation Bio, stated: “Nuvation Bio is well-capitalized. This all-stock transaction preserves our strong cash balance and eliminates the need for short-term financing to develop new assets and our existing pipeline. Leveraging our talented team and resources, we will continue to focus on executing our strategy to advance a differentiated product portfolio. This transaction brings Nuvation Bio closer to achieving our goal of delivering novel cancer therapies to patients.”