Rahway-based Merck and Terns Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage oncology company, entered into a definitive agreement under which Merck, through a subsidiary, will acquire Terns for $53 per share in cash for an approximate equity value of $6.7 billion.
This equates to $5.7 billion net of acquired cash and represents an approximate premium of 31% to the 60-day and 42% to the 90-day volume-weighted average stock price on March 24.
Merck’s and Terns’ Boards of Directors have approved the transaction. Merck, through a subsidiary, will acquire all of Terns’ outstanding shares.
The acquisition of Terns builds on Merck’s growing presence in hematology through TERN-701, a potential best-in-class candidate for certain patients with chronic myeloid leukemia, according to a release.
Terns’ lead candidate, TERN-701, is a novel investigational oral allosteric BCR::ABL1 tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) currently being evaluated in the Phase 1/2 CARDINAL trial (NCT06163430) for patients with Philadelphia chromosome-positive (Ph+), chronic phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) previously treated with at least one prior TKI and who experienced treatment failure, suboptimal response, or treatment intolerance.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Orphan Drug Designation for TERN-701 for the treatment of CML in March 2024.
TERN-701 has shown promising activity in clinical trials to date, with encouraging rates of major molecular response and deep molecular response observed by week 24.
Last month, Merck and the world-renowned Mayo Clinic announced a strategic research and development collaboration that aims to fuse Mayo Clinic’s massive clinical datasets with Merck’s advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to transform how new drugs are identified and developed.
