Client AbbVie to Acquire Capstan Therapeutics for Up to $2.1 Billion to Expand Immunotherapy Pipeline

Ropes & Gray advised AbbVie in the acquisition of cell therapy developer Capstan Therapeutics in a deal worth up to $2.1 billion to expand its pipeline with therapies for treatment of autoimmune diseases. The transaction was announced on June 30.

Capstan develops CAR-T therapies that use a patient’s own immune T cells to fight diseases. Capstan’s lead drug CPTX2309 is in clinical development for treatment of autoimmune diseases and is a potential first-in-class product for treating B cell-mediated autoimmune diseases. As part of the transaction, AbbVie will also acquire Capstan’s proprietary platform technology designed to deliver RNA payloads, such as messenger RNA (mRNA), capable of engineering specific cell types in vivo. In vivo CAR-T represents a potential new treatment method by capturing the power of cell therapy with the scalability of an off-the-shelf biologic that could allow more people to receive these therapies.

Under the transaction, AbbVie will pay up to $2.1 billion in cash at closing to acquire Capstan. AbbVie will take ownership of the phase 1 trial of CPTX2309 and preclinical programs and the Capstan technology platform.

The Ropes & Gray team was led by mergers and acquisitions partner Michael Beauvais and life sciences licensing partner Abigail Gregor, mergers and acquisitions counsel Bryan Lowrance, and life sciences licensing associate Evan Tallmadge.

The team included health care partner David Peloquin, emerging companies and venture capital partner Brad Flint, employment, executive compensation & benefits partners Kyle Higley and Megan Bisk and life sciences regulatory & compliance partner Kellie Combs.