Recordati SpA

Plus, news about Immunovant and Retro Biosciences. 💸 CVC and GBL launch tender offer for Recordati: CVC Capital Partners and Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBL), a Belgian investment holding company, launched their cash voluntary tender offer for the Italian rare disease drugmaker. They are offering 51.29 Euro per share in a buyout that could be worth more than $12 billion . — Kyle LaHucik 💊 Sobi’s gout drug passes Phase 3 test: The company’s pozdeutinurad met the REDUCE 2 trial’s primary endpoint, which looked at the proportion of patients achieving blood uric acid levels of less than 6 mg/dL at six months. Almost 70% of patients given 75 mg pozdeutinurad and 56.6% of those who received 50 mg reached this threshold, compared with 8.1% of placebo patients. Sobi is still waiting for data from a separate Phase 3 gout study called REDUCE 1. — Ayisha Sharma 📊 Immunovant shares open-label arthritis data: The Durham, NC-based drugmaker said its candidate, called IMVT-1402, achieved clinically meaningful improvements on a scale called the ACR, which measures the number of tender joints, swollen joints and other symptoms. Over half of the evaluable difficult-to-treat rheumatoid arthritis patients in the Phase 2b study achieved a minimum 50% improvement on the scale. Immunovant’s stock {IMVT} increased 20% following the Wednesday news. — Ayisha Sharma 💰Retro Biosciences gets more money: The longevity startup has raised an undisclosed amount from 4P Capital and others at a $1.8 billion pre-money valuation, STAT News reported on Friday. The Sam Altman-backed biotech has been working on a $1 billion funding round for more than a year. — Kyle LaHucik

Novo Nordisk's Wegovy Pill wins key EMA panel endorsement Retro raises fresh funds at $1.8B valuationCVC joins forces with Groupe Bruxelles Lambert to bid €10.7B for RecordatiNovo Nordisk's Wegovy Pill wins key EMA panel endorsement The EMA's drug advisory panel on Friday recommended approval of Novo Nordisk's Wegovy Pill (semaglutide) for weight loss. The positive opinion from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) includes data on the GLP-1 drug's label from the Phase III SELECT trial, which showed injectable Wegovy achieved a significant 20% risk reduction in major adverse cardiovascular events over a period of up to five years versus placebo.Novo Nordisk said it plans to launch the oral offering in ex-US markets next half. In the US, the Wegovy Pill is going head-to-head with Eli Lilly's oral small molecule GLP-1 agonist, Foundayo (orforglipron) (see – Physician Views Results: Factors driving Wegovy Pill's leadership of oral GLP-1 market evident but expect Foundayo to gain ground).Retro raises fresh funds at $1.8B valuationRetro Biosciences, a startup leveraging cellular reprogramming and autophagy to develop treatments capable of adding 10 years to the healthy human lifespan, announced on Friday the initial close of a financing at a pre-money valuation of $1.8 billion. The total amount raised in the round, led by 4P Capital and other investors, was not disclosed. The company will use the funding to advance its pipeline of anti-ageing therapeutics. Retro's lead programme, RTR242, is a small molecule designed to treat Alzheimer's disease by boosting autophagic flux; it entered Phase I testing last year. The startup is looking to hit several first-in-human milestones for RTR242 this year and in 2027. "This financing gives us the ability to keep building beyond our initial programmes by investing in new discovery efforts now that can become the next generation of therapies in the years ahead," the company said in a blog post. In addition to an in-house cell therapy manufacturing facility, Retro has built integrated AI and experimental platforms for protein engineering and therapeutic discovery.CVC joins forces with Groupe Bruxelles Lambert to bid €10.7B for RecordatiPrivate equity firm CVC Capital Partners has found a partner in its push to take Italian drugmaker Recordati private: Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, a Belgian investment group. Together, the pair launched a cash bid of €10.7 billion ($12.4 billion) for Recordati on Friday.CVC, which holds a 46.8% stake in Recordati, had issued a non-binding full takeover offer to the pharmaceutical company in March. The offer, which valued Recordati at €10.9 billion, was subject to the completion of due diligence, the securing of financing and the identification of partners to join the deal — of which the latter now appears complete.

iStock, Nauval Wildani Going private could give Recordati strategic flexibility and a stable source of capital, according to CVC Capital Partners and Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, which are offering to take the Italian pharma private for a 13% premium. Recordati has received a massive offer from a pair of investment firms to take the Italian pharma giant off the public market and move forward as a privately-held drug developer. The firms are offering €51.29 (around $59.5) per Recordati share, representing a 13% premium to the pharma’s closing price in March, when one of the bidders—CVC Capital Partners — first expressed its acquisition intent, according to a Friday news release . If it pushes through, the takeover could reach €10.73 billion in value, or approximately $12.44 billion. Alongside CVC is Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBL), a public investment holding company. Recordati is “now entering a new phase of development, characterized by a number of strategic opportunities ahead,” the bidders wrote on Friday, contending that this exposes the pharma to “greater execution risk, longer development timelines and increased R&D investment.” Going private will help Recordati as it enters this new phase of its business, the letter added, “providing strategic flexibility, stable capital base and aligned long-term shareholder support.” In conjunction with Friday’s offer, Rossini—a company controlled by CVC and which holds 46.82% of Recordati’s share capital—has agreed to tender its shares to the prospective buyers. The offer, if it pushes through, would close in the fourth quarter of 2026, according to the press announcement. Deals Bluebird Go-Private Deal Signals the ‘PE-ization of Pharma’ Why did two private equity firms with more than $460 billion under management want a little old gene therapy biotech called bluebird bio? We wanted to know. July 2, 2025 · 7 min read · Annalee Armstrong Read more Recordati’s go-private offer continues what PitchBook Senior Biotech Analyst Kazi Helal calls the “ PE-ization of pharma ,” referring to private equity firms. Over the past year or so, there has been a trend of biopharma companies increasingly turning toward private money to keep their drug development engines chugging along. Private equity investors “are seeing opportunity now in biotech and distressed assets, and it’s hard to pass off,” Helal told BioSpace in July 2025. Meanwhile, many biotechs are struggling and could use an infusion of private money. Arguably the most notable example of this deal type is bluebird bio, which was acquired by private firms Carlyle and SK Capital Partners for around $50 million last year. Gene therapy Bye Bye Bluebird: Gene Therapy Biotech Emerges From Private Buyout With Rebrand Bluebird bio has re-emerged after a private equity buyout as Genetix Biotherapeutics, marking a return to its roots and a new path forward for manufacturing. September 19, 2025 · 2 min read · Annalee Armstrong Read more A less extreme case is Lexeo Therapeutics, which in June 2025 secured $40 million in backing from Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds and venBio Partners to advance its gene therapies for cardiovascular diseases. There’s also Anthos Therapeutics, which launched in February 2019 with $250 million from Blackstone Life Sciences and a blood thinner candidate from Novartis dubbed abelacimab. In February last year, Novartis decided it wanted its asset back and absorbed Anthos for $3.1 billion .