Angelini Pharma is acquiring Catalyst Pharmaceuticals in a $4.1 billion deal that gives the Italy-based brain medicines company three commercialized rare disease products and entry into the U.S. market.
According to financial terms announced Thursday, Angelini is paying $31.50 in cash for each share of Catalyst, which is a 21% premium to the company’s closing stock price on April 22, the last trading day before signs of a potential acquisition became public. The purchase price is a 28% premium to the Catalyst’s average trading price in the 30 days before April 22.
The Angelini Pharma portfolio includes antidepressant trazodone, brand name Trittico, and the antipsychotic lurasidone hydrochloride, brand name Latuda. Both are older medicines. For 2024, Angelini Pharma reported €1.2 billion (about $1.4 billion) in revenue, a 3.6% increase compared to the prior year. The company is part of privately held and family controlled Angelini Industries Group, which was founded in 1919 by pharmacist Francesco Angelini. Health is the biggest business segment of the company, which also operates in consumer goods and industrial technology. Angelini Industries reports that 37% of its revenue comes from Italy and 49% from Europe. Just 14% of revenue comes from the rest of the world.
Catalyst was founded in 2002 and went public four years later. Angelini Pharma frames the Catalyst acquisition as the latest step in a multi-year transformation plan. Those changes include investments in central nervous system disorder drugs. Last year, Angelini Pharma participated in the Series D financing of GRIN Therapeutics, a startup developing drugs for neurodevelopmental disorders and epilepsies. The Italian company also struck a deal securing rights to GRIN drug radiprodil outside of North America. This drug is currently in late-stage clinical development.
With Catalyst, Angelini Pharma will immediately gain a commercial presence in the U.S. drugs market. For fiscal 2025, Coral Gables, Florida-based Catalyst reported $588.8 million in product revenue, which was a 20.3% increase compared to the prior year. The company said most of those sales were recorded in the U.S. Its top product is Firdapse, which in 2018 became the first FDA-approved drug for Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (LEMS), a disease in which the immune system attacks the junction between nerves and muscles. For fiscal 2025, Firdapse accounted for $358.4 million in sales, a 17.1% increase compared to the prior year.
Catalyst also sells Agamree, a corticosteroid approved for treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Catalyst acquired North American rights to this drug from Santhera Pharmaceuticals. The third Catalyst drug is the epilepsy medicine Fycompa, whose U.S. rights were acquired from Eisai.
“Today, we take another significant step with the acquisition of Catalyst Pharmaceuticals, which we believe will establish Angelini Pharma as a relevant global player in neurological rare diseases,” Angelini Pharma CEO Sergio Marullo di Condojanni said in a prepared statement. “Entering the U.S. market will allow us to acquire the scale and capabilities needed to continue this journey.”
The companies expect to complete the transaction in the third quarter of this year. When the deal closes, Catalyst will operate as an Angelini Pharma subsidiary.
Separate from the acquisition, Catalyst announced it has resolved patent litigation with Hetero Labs regarding Firdapse. Catalyst had sued in response to Hetero’s application seeking FDA approval of a generic version of the LEMS drug. Under the terms of the settlement, Hetero will not market generic Firdapse any earlier than January 2035 — assuming the drug wins FDA approval. Catalyst had previously settled similar patent litigation with generic drugmakers Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Inventia Healthcare Limited. With the Hetero settlement, no further litigation is pending related to Firdapse.
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