Date: Jun 23, 2015 Source: bizjournals (
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With the completion of the $8.4 billion acquisition of Synageva BioPharma by a Connecticut pharmaceutical company specializing in marketing extremely rare drugs, the Bay State has one fewer locally-owned, publicly-traded biotech firm.
In a statement today, Alexion (Nasdaq: ALXN), which reported 2,273 employees as of the end of last year, said its combination with 282-employee Synageva (Nasdaq: GEVA) gives it a new total head count of "more than 2,800 employees." There was no mention of planned layoffs in the statement, but also no word on whether the current executives at Synageva, including CEO Sanj Patel, will stay on in the long term.
Alexion did say that Felix Baker, former chairman of the board at Synageva, will join Alexion's board as of today.
Alexion said the combination of the two companies created "the most robust rare disease pipeline in the biotech industry across a range of therapeutic modalities."
"As we complete this acquisition, the combination of our two companies provides us the exciting opportunity to build upon our collective strengths and talents to firmly establish Alexion as the global leader in serving patients with devastating and rare diseases," said Alexion CEO David Hallal.
The combined company currently has one approved drug, Soliris, but is anticipating approvals of Alexion's drug, Strensiq and Synageva's drug, Kanuma, in coming months. All three are for disease affecting hundreds or just a few thousands of patients, small even by rare drug standards.
