Breaking Business News: Lilly to Acquire DICE Therapeutics
DICE is initially focused on developing oral therapeutics against well-validated targets in immunology such as IL-17.
Eli Lilly and Company will acquire DICE Therapeutics, Inc. for a cool $2.4 billion to expand its immunology pipeline.
DICE Therapeutics, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company leveraging its proprietary technology platform to build a pipeline of novel oral therapeutic candidates to treat chronic diseases in immunology and other therapeutic areas. DICE is initially focused on developing oral therapeutics against well-validated targets in immunology, with the goal of achieving comparable potency to their systemic biologic counterparts, which have demonstrated the greatest therapeutic benefit to date in these disease areas.
The Company's DELSCAPE platform is designed to discover selective oral small molecules with the potential to modulate protein-protein interactions (PPIs) as effectively as systemic biologics.
DICE's lead therapeutic candidates are oral antagonists of the pro-inflammatory signaling molecule, IL-17, which is a validated drug target implicated in a variety of immunology indications.
"In combination with its novel technology and expertise in drug discovery, DICE's talented workforce and passion for innovation will enhance our efforts to make life better for people living with devastating autoimmune diseases," says Patrik Jonsson, executive vice president, president of Lilly Immunology and Lilly USA, chief customer officer, in a news release. "We welcome DICE colleagues to Lilly and, together, we can tackle the challenges ahead in finding new treatments for patients with significant unmet medical needs."
Kevin Judice, Ph.D., CEO of DICE Therapeutics, adds: "We're eager to see our pipeline, including our oral IL-17 inhibitors, DC-806 and DC-853, benefit from Lilly's resources and global reach and I'm excited by the prospect of watching these two talented teams in a united quest for scientific innovation. Our novel approach to discovering and advancing oral, small molecules against validated protein-protein interaction targets has even greater potential with Lilly's industry-leading clinical development capabilities to get these medicines to patients suffering from autoimmune diseases."
Terms of the Agreement
Lilly will commence a tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares of DICE for a purchase price of $48 per share in cash (an aggregate of approximately $2.4 billion) payable at closing. The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.
The transaction is not subject to any financing condition and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2023, subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of required antitrust clearance and the tender of a majority of the outstanding shares of DICE's common stock. Following the successful closing of the tender offer, Lilly will acquire any shares of DICE that are not tendered in the tender offer through a second-step merger at the same consideration as paid in the tender offer.
The purchase price payable at closing represents a premium of approximately 40% to the 30-day volume-weighted average trading price of DICE's common stock ended on June 16, 2023, the last trading day before the announcement of the transaction. DICE's Board of Directors unanimously recommends that DICE's stockholders tender their shares in the tender offer.
Lilly will determine the accounting treatment of this transaction as a business combination or an asset acquisition, including any related acquired in-process research and development charges, according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) upon closing. This transaction will thereafter be reflected in Lilly's financial results and financial guidance.
For Lilly, Kirkland & Ellis LLP is acting as legal counsel. For DICE, Centerview Partners LLC is acting as exclusive financial advisor and Fenwick & West LLP as legal counsel.