Astrazeneca to buy $1.8bn hypertension drug maker

ASTRAZENECA has revealed it will buy a biopharmaceutical company behind a new hypertension treatment in a $1.8bn (£1.5bn) deal.

Core to the drugs giant’s takeover of Cincor Pharma is its experimental therapy Baxdrostat, which is in development to treat conditions including high blood pressure and chronic kidney disease.

Under the deal, Astrazeneca will pay $26 a share, or $1.3bn in total, which is a 121pc premium for shareholders on its Friday closing price of $11.78. Investors will also receive another $10 per share if the company achieves regulatory submission for Baxdrostat.

The deal will result in a bumper payday for its venture capital investors, with the largest stake held by Sofinnova Investments, based in California.

Marc de Garidel, Cincor Pharma’s chief executive, previously led Astrazeneca spin-off Corvidia Therapeutics, which Novo Nordisk took over in 2020 for $2.1bn.

He is also chairman and former chief executive of French drug maker Ipsen, which separately yesterday agreed to buy Us-based drug maker Albireo for just under $1bn to enrich its rare disease pipeline.

Astrazeneca aims to combine

Baxdrostat with its own Farxiga, a diabetes drug whose sales ballooned after it was also shown to benefit patients with heart failure and kidney disease.

Farxiga, whose sales jumped by almost 50pc during the first nine months of 2022 to reach $3.2bn, belongs to a highly competitive class of drugs that includes rivals such as Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly’s Jardiance.

However, the deal for Cincor Pharma is not without some risk, as Baxdrostat

has a mixed track record in treating hypertension. Although it succeeded in a phase two treatment-resistant hypertension trial, the drug failed to outperform a placebo in another mid-stage study involving patients with uncontrolled high blood pressure.

However, in theory, a combination of Baxdrostat with Farxiga could enable Astrazeneca to prolong its Farxiga franchise, according to Mene Pangalos, an executive vice president at the Anglo-swedish drugs giant.