Legend Bio said to have received takeover bid; Stock price climbs

Meanwhile, GenScript, a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) that founded Legend and continues to hold a 52% stake in the company, said it had no knowledge of the takeover. On Friday, the company’s NASDAQ stock price rose 12% without any official news.

Legend partners the global rights to its lead CAR-T therapy, Carvykti (ciltacabtagene autoleucel; cilta-cel) with Janssen Pharma, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. In Q1 of 2024, the therapy booked sales of $157 million.

In 2017, Nanjing Legend stunned the ASCO meeting with news that its lead candidate, a BCMA CAR-T cell therapy for multiple myeloma, produced a 94% clinical response rate in a group of pretreated patients. Previously, no drug had reported that level of response. Six months later, Legend partnered the drug with Janssen Pharma for $350 million upfront. Now, J&J says it expects Carvykti will generate at least $5 billion in annual sales.

In a filing Monday, GenScript said it’s not aware of any reason for the dramatic stock movement, while Legend declined to comment on market rumors.

Given its close relationship with Legend, J&J would be a natural partner for a Legend takeover, but neither company has confirmed the possibility of a closer relationship. Legend would be a big deal considering it has a market cap of $9 billion, which would have to be increased for a sale.

In late 2023, Legend partnered its DLL3 (delta-like ligand 3) CAR-T candidates with Novartis in a $1.2 billion agreement ($100 million upfront).

Legend develops advanced cell therapies using an array of technology platforms, including autologous and allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor T-cell, gamma-delta T cell and natural killer (NK) cell-based immunotherapies. Its three R&D sites (New Jersey, Nanjing, and Dublin) develop candidates from the platforms to discover cutting-edge therapeutics for patients worldwide.

GenScript is a pharmaceutical research and manufacturing service provider for more than 200,000 customers in over 100 countries with sales, manufacturing, and research and development presences in China, the US, Europe and the Asia Pacific. The company was recently named among China biopharma being investigated of selling patent protected information and/or DNA results of US citizens to China companies/organizations.

A version of this article was first published in ChinaBio Today on July 15, 2024.