Biopharma conglomerate Johnson & Johnson announced Monday it will buy San Diego-based Ambrx Biopharma for $2 billion to gain access to its promising pipeline of cancer therapies.
J&J will buy the company for $28 per share in cash — about double Ambrx’s closing price Friday. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of this year.
Once the deal is finalized, “Ambrx will be integrated into Johnson & Johnson’s Oncology R&D team, which sits within Johnson & Johnson’s larger Innovative Medicine business,” according to an SEC filing.
“With our deep and unique knowledge of precision engineering of protein therapeutics enabled by our proprietary technology incorporating synthetic amino acids in living cells, Ambrx has developed next-generation novel drug candidates such as site-specifically conjugated highly stable antibody drug conjugates,” said Ambrx CEO Daniel J. O’Connor in the announcement. “This announcement is the culmination of two decades of scientific work, combined with the Ambrx team’s talent, hard work and innovation. I look forward to what Ambrx will achieve as part of Johnson & Johnson.”
Ambrx was spun out from The Scripps Research Institute in 2003. It pioneered the platform for incorporating synthetic amino acids into proteins used in precision medicine and immuno-oncology therapies.
Ambrx announced an initial public offering in 2014, but backed out. In 2021, Ambrx ed the tidal wave of San Diego companies debuting on the public market.
The La Jolla biotech — located off North Torrey Pines Road near the golf course — specializes in antibody-drug conjugates, which use antibodies to selectively deliver medications to specified targets. As a cancer treatment, this method of delivering medication, often chemotherapy drugs aimed at cancer cells, seeks to minimize damage to healthy cells.
There has been growing interest in the potential of antibody drug conjugates, or ADCs, among Johnson & Johnson’s competitors. Major drug companies such as Pfizer, AbbVie and Merck have inked similar deals for ADC companies in the past year.
Ambrx had 87 employees as of Sept. 30 and is traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Its pipeline of therapeutics are aimed at metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, metastatic HER2+ breast cancer and renal cell carcinoma, a form of kidney cancer.
The merger with Johnson & Johnson will help Ambrx researchers accelerate the company’s clinical study of advanced prostate cancer as well as its pipeline of novel product candidates, according to the announcement.
Ambrx will remain an independent company until the transaction closes. It is not clear if there will be changes to the company’s leadership structure, workforce or office presence in San Diego following the completion of the merger.
Ambrx’s stock more than doubled its price Monday and closed at $27.47 per share.
