Biotechnology producer Vertex Pharmaceuticals agreed today to purchase US-based diabetes treatment developer Semma Therapeutics in a $950m all-cash deal that will enable corporates Medtronic, SinoPharm and Novartis to exit.
Semma is working on treatments for diabetes that will utilise billions of beta cells grown from stem cells in order to produce insulin. The cells will be infused into the liver to control glucose levels in the blood, as an alternative to insulin injections.
The company was spun out of Harvard University in 2014. Dr Douglas Melton, Xander University professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard, was its scientific founder and he will continue to chair Semma’s advisory board post-acquisition.
Venture capital firm MPM Capital led Semma’s $44m series A round in 2015, investing alongside medical device maker Medtronic, Arch Venture Partners and Fidelity Biosciences, the subsidiary of investment and financial services group Fidelity now known as F-Prime Capital.
Philanthropic VC fund JDRF T1D Fund added an undisclosed sum in early 2017 before taking part in a $114m series B round later the same year that included Medtronic and pharmaceutical companies Novartis and SinoPharm, the latter participating through its SinoPharm Capital unit.
The round also featured 6 Dimensions Capital, which was co-founded by pharmaceutical firm WuXi AppTec, as well as F-Prime and fellow Fidelity unit Eight Roads Ventures, Cowen Healthcare Investments, MPM Capital, Arch Venture Partners, Ori Healthcare Fund and Wu Capital.
Jeffrey Leiden, Vertex’s chairman, president and CEO, said: “We are excited to work with the talented scientists at Semma to build on their significant progress toward providing effective and potentially curative cell therapy options for people living with type 1 diabetes.
“We see a substantial opportunity to transform the treatment paradigm for type 1 diabetes, a specialty disease cared for by endocrinologists, both by advancing the development and manufacturing of the cells themselves, as well as through the highly innovative cell/device combination.”
