According to a publication from FOXBusiness, Waltham, Massachusetts-based Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. has agreed to buy out Brammer Bio for $1.7 billion. With the acquisition, Thermo Fisher, a lab equipment supply company, will secure a foothold in the hot topic field of gene therapy. Brammer Bio itself was formed from the merger of two companies, Brammer Biopharmaceuticals and Florida Biologix.
About Gene Therapy
Thermo Fisher and Brammer Bio are just two of the many enormous companies around the world seeking to manipulate the human gene sequence to cure disease. Gene therapy is a nascent field of study involving often experimental therapies that use modified genetic material to treat or prevent disease.
Many thousands of individuals are affected by conditions caused by mutations to important genes in their genetic code. The ability to to modify these genes to combat the adverse effects of these mutations could result in significant improvements to quality of life for those affected.
The field is growing at an insane rate, and scientists believe the potential to treat genetic diseases at the source, rather than treating the illness symptomatically, could be one of the defining medical breakthroughs of the 21st-century. Right now, as many as 300 different gene therapies are undergoing investigation by scientists around the world.
The Thermo Fisher-Brammer Buyout
Official acquisition talks are to begin early this year according to Thermo Fisher chief executive Marc Casper. The $1.7 billion deal is a significant contribution to Brammer, who are expected to bring in only $250 million in other revenue this year. Thermo Fisher, on the other hand, is expected to earn somewhere in that vicinity of $24 billion, based on last year’s sales figures.
Although the development of new therapies is always an expensive and time consuming process, for major players like the $100+ billion valued Thermo Fisher, gene therapy’s potential to turn a future profit in is worth the steep cost of entry to the field. The result is a field of medicine dominated by financial titans, creating seven-figure therapies that might treat only a handful of individuals in the United States. The drugs can be so prohibitively expensive that some health systems won’t cover the cost. However, favorable policies like orphan drug or rare pediatric disease designation make it possible for companies to charge what they like for first-of-their-kind drugs while minimizing the cost of research.
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