Bristol-Myers Squibb Completes Amira Pharmaceuticals Acquisition
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) Company has completed its previously announced acquisition of Amira Pharmaceuticals, a privately held small-molecule pharmaceutical company, focused on the discovery and early development of new drugs to treat inflammatory and fibrotic diseases. As a result of the transaction, Amira Pharmaceuticals has now become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bristol-Myers Squibb.
The acquisition of Amira Pharmaceuticals’ fibrosis program marks Bristol-Myers Squibb’s entrance into fibrotic diseases, an area of high unmet medical need which is complementary to its current therapeutic areas of focus.
The acquisition includes the lead asset of Amira Pharmaceuticals, AM152, an orally available lysophosphatidic acid 1 (LPA1) receptor antagonist which has completed Phase I clinical studies and is currently poised for Phase IIa proof-of-confidence studies for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and systemic Sclerosis (SSc), or scleroderma.
Bristol-Myers Squibb also has obtained Amira’s preclinical autotaxin program, which may be useful in the treatment of neuropathic pain and cancer metastases.
The agreement was originally announced on July 21, 2011, and has now met all customary regulatory approval obligations.
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