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Bluebird Bio will promote itself to personal fairness corporations Carlyle and SK Capital for about $30 million, the corporate stated Friday, marking the tip of the Bluebird’s fall from the one of many buzziest biotech corporations to 1 that was on the cusp of operating out of cash.
Bluebird’s shareholders will obtain $3 per share with the potential of getting one other $6.84 a share if Bluebird’s gene therapies attain $600 million in gross sales in any 12-month interval by the tip of 2027. Bluebird shares closed at $7.04 on Thursday. They fell 40% on Friday after the corporate introduced the sale.
For greater than thirty years, Bluebird has been on the forefront of making one-time remedies that promised to remedy genetic illnesses. At one level, Bluebird’s market cap hovered round $9 billion as traders purchased into the concept the corporate might discover success with its gene therapies. It is fallen below $41 million after the corporate confronted a number of scientific setbacks, separated its most cancers work into one other firm and fell into monetary despair.
The turning level got here in 2018, when Bluebird flagged {that a} affected person who acquired its gene remedy for sickle-cell illness developed most cancers. Bluebird concluded its therapy did not trigger the situation, however the revelation began a sequence of questions surrounding the security of its DNA-altering remedies.
Bluebird additionally confronted pushback from European payers after pricing its gene remedy for blood dysfunction beta thalassemia, known as Zynteglo, at $1.8 million per affected person. The corporate withdrew the therapy from Europe in 2021, simply two years after it was authorised there. Bluebird stated it could as an alternative concentrate on the U.S., the place it was readying for the approval of Zynteglo for beta thalassemia, Lyfgenia for sickle cell illness, in addition to one other remedy Skysona for a uncommon mind illness known as cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy.
All three of these gene therapies have been authorised lately, however none of them have been in a position to ease Bluebird’s monetary woes. The corporate had been spending tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} a yr. Offloading Bluebird’s most cancers remedies into new firm 2Seventy Bio additionally eradicated an essential income.
Eventually replace in November, Bluebird stated its money would fund the corporate’s operations into the primary quarter of this yr. The sale marks a stark reversal of Bluebird’s previous efficiency. The upfront worth of about $30 million is a fraction of the $80 million Bluebird’s former Chief Govt Officer Nick Leschly created from promoting the corporate’s inventory throughout his time there.
And it is at odds with the transformative outcomes that almost all sufferers see with the corporate’s remedies. This reporter has spoken to sufferers who have been determined for the prospect to obtain Zynteglo, in addition to a then-10-year-old woman who felt lucky to turn out to be the primary individual within the U.S. to obtain the therapy after it was authorised.
The whole area is going through powerful questions proper now about whether or not firms can translate the promise of one-time remedies for uncommon illnesses into viable companies. Vertex‘s competing gene remedy for sickle cell illness, Casgevy, has seen a equally sluggish launch. Pfizer on Thursday introduced it could cease promoting a gene remedy for hemophilia that was authorised just one yr in the past, citing weak demand.
Bluebird’s remedies might nonetheless change many lives. They simply weren’t sufficient to alter the corporate’s destiny.
