California biotech BioMarin will pay $4.8 billion for Amicus Therapeutics, a rare disease company with a presence in Philadelphia
It's not clear what the deal will mean for the research and development center Amicus has in University City.
California biotech BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. will pay $4.8 billion in cash for Amicus Therapeutics, a Princeton rare disease company with a presence in Philadelphia, the two publicly traded companies announced Friday.
The acquisition of Amicus, expected to be completed in the second quarter of next year, will give BioMarin treatments for rare genetic diseases that generated $599 million in revenue over the last 12 months, according to BioMarin, which is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
» READ MORE: Why Philadelphia loses promising biotech firms to Boston, San Francisco, and San Diego
Amicus has a treatment for Fabry disease, which is caused by a genetic mutation that allows fatty waste to build up in the body, damaging tissues and organs, according the BioMarin. The second treatment is for late-onset Pompe disease, which is an inherited genetic condition that causes muscle weakness that worsens over time.
BioMarin CEO Alexander Hardy said on a webcast about the deal that both of those treatments have the potential to reach $1 billion in global sales. BioMarin had $2.85 billion in revenue last year, compared to $528 million at Amicus.
The Philadelphia tie
In 2019, Amicus established its Global Research and Gene Therapy Center of Excellence at 3675 Market St. in University City, saying at the time that the facility would employ 200 people eventually. The company’s website now lists the location as its Research Center of Excellence.
Amicus now has 12 people in its Philadelphia office, a spokesperson said Friday.
The company laid off 35 people working in research and development in 2022 after terminating plans for a gene therapy spinoff, according to Fierce Biotech.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Gene Therapy Center under researcher Jim Wilson drew Amicus to Philadelphia from central New Jersey, where the company was then based in Cranbury. Penn has since spun out Wilson’s center into two for-profit companies, Gemma Biotherapeutcs and Franklin Biolabs.
John Crowley, chief executive of Amicus at the time, liked to call Philadelphia the “Cradle of Cures,” a name that hasn’t stuck. Crowley is now president and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), a biotech trade organization in Washington.