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Johnson & Johnson to Acquire Firefly Bio in $1 Billion Deal

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Johnson & Johnson to Acquire Firefly Bio in $1 Billion Deal

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) said Monday that it has agreed to acquire cancer drug developer Firefly Bio for $1 billion in cash to strengthen its oncology portfolio.

The acquisition will give the company access to Firefly Bio's proprietary Firelink degrader antibody conjugate platform, which is focused on cancers driven by Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog, or KRAS, mutations.

The platform is designed to overcome limitations of current treatment limitations by delivering a highly selective protein degrader to tumor cells and avoiding healthy cells, according to Johnson & Johnson.

"KRAS has notoriously been considered an undruggable target and patients with KRAS-driven cancers continue to face limited treatment options with survival measured in months, not years," said John Reed, executive vice president for innovative medicine and research and development at J&J.

"We believe the proprietary Firelink platform will overcome the limitations of current treatments and diversify our pipeline with preclinical candidates for treating multiple types of solid tumors," Reed said.

The acquisition of Firefly Bio is the latest move by Johnson & Johnson to expand its oncology pipeline and advance its aim to develop targeted medicines for the most prevalent and hard-to-treat solid cancer tumors.

In December, Johnson & Johnson acquired Halda Therapeutics for $3.05 billion to expand its portfolio of therapies for solid tumors, including prostate cancer, while in March 2024 it acquired Ambrx Biopharma, whose portfolio comprised of products targeting multiple types of cancers, for $2 billion.

The deal for Firefly Bio is expected to close later this year, subject to regulatory approvals.

Shares of Johnson & Johnson, up about 12% so far this year, were off by about 0.2% in Monday trading.

Price: $231.91, Change: $-0.86, Percent Change: -0.37%

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