[메디칼업저버 손형민 기자] LG Chem announced that it has decided to acquire Aveo Pharmaceuticals, which owns the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved kidney cancer treatment ‘Potivda (ingredient name: tivozanib)’ for $566 million (about 800 billion won).
This is the first time for a Korean company to acquire a company with an FDA-approved new drug, LG Chem will acquire a 100% stake in Aveo.
Founded in Boston, Massachusetts, USA in 2002, Aveo is a company that has secured comprehensive capabilities specialized in the anticancer market such as clinical development, licensing, sales, and marketing. It was listed on the Nasdaq in 2010 and has continued to grow steadily every quarter after obtaining FDA approval for Potivda, a kidney cancer target treatment, in 2021.
Through this acquisition, LG Chem will secure the ability to commercialize cancer in the United States in a short period of time, while laying the groundwork for launching various in-house developed new drugs in the world’s largest pharmaceutical market, the United States.
In particular, in the United States, insurance, drug price system, and distribution structure are operated differently from those in Korea, so local-specific commercialization capabilities are required from the stage of new drug development.
Although the market is difficult to enter directly, LG Chem decided to acquire Aveo, which has successfully entered the commercialization stage, in the sense that it is possible to operate a business with a sales organization centered on a small number of cancer-specialized medical institutions in the oncology field.
Fortivda, an FDA-approved anticancer drug sold by Aveo, acquired Category 1 Recommendation from the NCCN Guideline in August of this year, solidifying its position as a kidney cancer treatment.
In addition to Potivda, Aveo has three anticancer pipelines in the clinical development stage, such as a treatment for head and neck cancer (Ficlatuzumab), which is undergoing phase 3 clinical trials.
LG Chem has a total of 20 new drug pipelines in the development stage (preclinical and clinical), including nine cancer pipelines, including solid cancer cell therapy, and treatment for gout, NASH, and obesity. LG Chem is expected to accelerate its market entry from the early stage of new drug launches by securing commercialization capabilities in the US early.
LG Chem Vice Chairman Shin Hak-cheol said, “The decision to take over is the most important milestone in the 40-year history of LG Chem’s bio business and lays the foundation for this business to take off globally. We will speed up our leap forward as a global innovative pharmaceutical company by further enhancing our clinical and licensing capabilities in the US, focusing on oncology,” he said.