Johnson & Johnson to Acquire Intra-Cellular Therapies for $14.6 Billion to Strengthen CNS Portfolio
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On January 13, 2025, during the JPM conference, pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J) announced the acquisition of Intra-Cellular, a Nasdaq-listed drug company in the United States, for a total valuation of $14.6 billion (approximately 106.947 billion RMB). Foreign media had leaked the details of this transaction on January 12.
In the first three quarters of 2024, Intra-Cellular's revenue was $482 million, with $175 million in Q3 2024 (growth +39%); full-year revenue is projected at $685 million. In the 2023 fiscal year, Intra-Cellular’s revenue was $464 million. Before the acquisition announcement, Intra-Cellular’s stock price had increased by approximately 40% over the past 12 months.
The currently acquired target company is in a loss state. Johnson & Johnson's hefty acquisition this time aims to obtain the rising star product in the CNS field, Caplyta (Lumateperone). According to sales forecasts, the peak sales of Lumateperone are expected to exceed 5 billion US dollars. In February 2020, Caplyta (Lumateperone) was officially approved and launched in the US market. The revenue in 2020 was 22.81 million US dollars, 83.8 million US dollars in 2021, and the performance in 2022 was 250 million US dollars.
PharmaCircleLearned: Lumateperone is an innovative drug used for treating neurodegenerative diseases such as schizophrenia and depression. It acts as a 5-hydroxytryptamine 2A (5-HT2A) receptor antagonist and a dopamine D2 receptor modulator. The drug was developed and commercialized by Intra-Cellular, which acquired the relevant patents from BMS (Bristol-Myers Squibb) in 2005. (In 2001, BMS acquired DuPont Pharmaceuticals for $7.8 billion, with several Chinese scientists contributing to the drug's development.) To date, Lumateperone remains the first and only drug approved by the U.S. FDA for both adjunctive and monotherapy treatment of bipolar I and II depression.
Pharnex Cloud Data, www.pharnexcloud.com;Renamed to Mose Medical Data
By the end of 2024, Intra-Cellular submitted the third new indication supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for Lumateperone to the U.S. FDA, intended for use as an adjunctive treatment for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). In terms of product lifecycle management, the long-acting injectable (LAI) formulation of this product is also under concurrent development.
Intra-Cellular recently reached a settlement with generics and branded pharmaceutical giant Sandoz regarding patent disputes, under which the latter agreed not to launch a generic version of Lumateperone before 2040.
Pharnex Cloud data, www.pharnexcloud.com;After the name change, the data for Mospar Medicine shows:
Intra-Cellular's investigational candidate product ITI-1284 (a deuterated new drug, prototype being Lumateperone) is currently in Phase 2 clinical research for the development targeting generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and Alzheimer’s disease-related psychiatric symptoms and agitation. Other candidate molecules include Lenrispodun (PDE target), ITI-1020 (PDE target, for oncology development), ITI-333, and ITI-1549, among others.
Previously, there were frequent major acquisitions in the central nervous system field, such as Karuna($14 Billion Small Molecule! What's Behind Karuna Pharmaceuticals?)、Cerevel (AbbVie
Acquired for a total price of 8.7 billion US dollars at the end of 2023;5-Year Relay Run: The $8.7 Billion Acquisition of a Molecule, From Pfizer's Rejection to Cerevel Therapeutics）。
Reference:
NMPA/CDE；
Pharnex Cloud data, www.pharnexcloud.com;Renamed to Mosentropy Medical Data;
FDA/EMA/PMDA；
https://www.jnj.com/;
https://www.jnj.com/media-center/press-releases/johnson-johnson-strengthens-neuroscience-leadership-with-acquisition-of-intra-cellular-therapies-inc;
Relevant companies' public disclosures; etc.
This article is intended to provide scientific information to healthcare professionals only, and does not represent the platform's position or any medication recommendations.。More pharmaceutical companies' information exchange can leave a business card in the backstage.
