Biotech Rivalry: Vivek Ramaswamy's Roivant Turns $15 Million Into $5 Billion with Pfizer's Bowel-Disease Treatment

Biotech firm Roivant, founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, adeptly turned $15 million into $5 billion by successfully developing a bowel-disease treatment previously given to it for free by Pfizer, seeing a massive financial windfall from its sale to Roche, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Pfizer deeming this asset non-strategic had transferred the license to Roivant last December, to cut back on research and development costs. The ingenious team at Roivant set forth into the development of the treatment, that targets the inflammatory protein named TL1A, with a relatively frugal budget of $15 million. The result - a whopping cash deal of $5 billion from Roche.

However, Pfizer didn’t entirely lose out on the deal, as the pharma giant had retained a 25% stake along with full rights to the drug outside the US and Japan. Given this, Pfizer can anticipate about $1.4 billion from Roche's acquisition, which hits $7.1 billion for the treatment's developer, Telavant Holdings.

Following Roche's acquisition announcement, stocks of Prometheus Biosciences, a rival company developing a similar drug, shot up and was subsequently bought by Merck for $10.8 billion. More recently, a $1.5 billion collaboration was made public between Sanofi and Teva Pharmaceuticals towards developing more TL1A treatments.

Though still awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration, anti-TL1A therapies have gained significant traction, promising treatment for conditions like ulcerative colitis and potential application in dermatology or gynecology.