More Deals Hit

Two more this morning. Both from the portfolio.

Eli Lilly acquires Centessa (CNTA) for $38.00 cash per share plus a CVR worth up to $9.00, total potential $47.00. Deal is focused on their orexin-2 receptor agonist program for narcolepsy and sleep-wake disorders. CNTA closed Friday at $28.70. That's a 32% premium on the cash alone, 64% to the full CVR. Lilly has been on an absolute tear this quarter. Ventyx, Innovent, Insilico, now Centessa. Four deals in Q1. They're not slowing down.

CNTA was on our Miami Health Week list.

Biogen acquires Apellis (APLS) for roughly $5.6B. Apellis brings the complement pathway, two marketed drugs (Syfovre for geographic atrophy, Empaveli for PNH/C3G), and a real growth franchise in immunology and rare disease. APLS closed Friday at $16.97 and gapped to $40+ pre-market. Biogen is expanding beyond neuro and this gives them ophthalmology, nephrology, and hematology in one shot.

That brings March alone to over $30B in announced biotech M&A. TERN fell to Merck for $6.7B. DAWN fell to Servier for $2.5B. Now CNTA and APLS. The pace is not normal. Pharma is buying everything with a clean dataset and a differentiated platform.

Also worth flagging. Caribou Biosciences (CRBU) just got RMAT designation from FDA for CB-011, their allogeneic anti-BCMA CAR-T for multiple myeloma. Off-the-shelf CAR-T with a CRISPR-based editing platform. RMAT means accelerated pathway, priority review eligibility, and increased FDA engagement. The allogeneic cell therapy space is in active consolidation mode with BMS, Roche, Novartis, and J&J all circling. CRBU is on the Miami list too.

The list keeps shrinking because companies keep getting acquired off it. That's the whole point.

More to come this week.