Hartford Business Journal

10 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | OCTOBER 28, 2024 Biohaven CEO Dr. Vlad Coric holds a box of Nurtec, the quick dissolve tablets that treat migraine attacks, which were developed by his New Haven-based company before being sold to Pfizer. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Biohaven 2.0 Two years after selling its migraine assets to Pfizer in $13B deal, New Haven-based biopharma trying to broaden its impact a number of immune modulating agents to treat diseases like Parkin- son's or Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis, and then some more common diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and others." He noted that the drug being developed to treat the rare pediatric disorder also is being investigated as a better alternative to GLP-1 obesity drugs like Ozempic. "People are focused on all these weight-loss drugs, but unfortunately when you take these GLP agents you lose muscle," Coric said. "And losing muscle isn't good, because when you lose muscle you actually lose commensurate bone mass." Biohaven's drug actually helps increase muscle mass, he said. Along with those drugs, Biohaven is developing another migraine treatment, which Coric described as a novel potential pain medication "that's not addictive and non-opiate." He adds that his company is capable of handling all the different drug pipelines in their various stages of development. "You hear a lot about large pharma not having deep pipelines," Coric said. "Biohaven has been this produc- tive, efficient, R&D small company innovating and putting out a lot of pipeline assets." Major validation The challenge, he said, is to make sure the company can fund all the research and development, which is a major roadblock in the bioscience and pharmaceutical industries. That was the impetus for a recent public offering. In October, Biohaven announced the sale of more than 6 million of its common shares at $47.50 per share. The gross proceeds from that offering were approximately $287.5 million, before deducting under- writing discounts, commissions and expenses. "If you look at our filings, you'll see some pretty marquee funds that are supporting Biohaven," Coric said, citing Fidelity Investments, T. Rowe Price, Janus Henderson Investors and BlackRock. By David Krechevsky davidk@hartfordbusiness.com T he old saying is, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." But what if at first you do succeed … say, to the tune of $13 billion? Meet Biohaven 2.0. The original version, call it Biohaven 1.0, was spun out of Yale University in 2013 and went public four years later. Founded by Dr. Vlad Coric, the New Haven biopharmaceutical company successfully developed two migraine treatments, the drug rimegepant — known as Nurtec ODT in the United States and Vydura in the European Union — and the nasal spray zavegepant. Fast-forward to 2022, when pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. completed its $11.6 billion acquisi- tion of those migraine therapeutic assets, while also paying off Biohav- en's debt, bringing the total deal value to $13 billion. The purchase also included about 1,000 Biohaven workers becoming Pfizer employees, leaving the New Haven company with about 300 people on staff mostly doing research and development. For most startups, a deal of that magnitude would send them back to the drawing board. Biohaven seems to have just reloaded. "So, we had the sale to Pfizer of the migraine assets about two years ago," and then "we spun off the rest of the pipeline" into a new and separate company, Coric, Biohaven's CEO, said in a recent interview with Hartford Business Journal. "The company's valuation at the time was like $300 million or $400 million when we spun out, and in a short two years we're already above $5 billion now." In fact, according to Yahoo! Finance, Biohaven's market capital- ization is more than $5.3 billion. "We're trying to create a much more impactful, broader pipeline company — Biohaven 2.0 here," Coric said. "And that is not just one thing, it's multiple things." Robust pipeline When Coric says Biohaven wants a "broader pipeline company," he's not kidding. The company now is working to develop 12 therapeutics to treat 21 different medical disorders. Three of those drugs, which would treat seven different disorders, have reached Phase 3 of development, the final testing phase before a drug can be brought to market. Those drugs include: • BHV-4157, or Troriluzole, which is being developed to treat obses- sive-compulsive disorder, as well as spinocerebellar ataxia, a degenera- tive genetic neurological disorder. • BHV-2000, a myostatin called Taldefgrobep Alfa, being developed to treat spinal muscular atrophy, a rare pediatric disorder, and • BHV-7000, a Kv7 activator, to treat two forms of epilepsy, along with bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder. That's just a small portion of the drugs in development. "This is quite a robust pipeline," Coric said, "and there's some really exciting areas that we're focused in on. One is immunology. We have BIOHAVEN Industry: Biopharmaceuticals Top Executive: Dr. Vlad Coric, CEO HQ: 215 Church St., New Haven Employees: About 300 Website: www.biohaven.com DRUG PIPELINE Biohaven is working to develop 12 therapeutics to treat 21 different medical disorders, including: • Obsessive-compulsive disorder • Spinal muscular atrophy • Obesity • Epilepsy • Bipolar disorder • Major depressive disorder • Migraine • Early Alzheimer's disease • Early Parkinson's disease • Multiple sclerosis • Rheumatoid arthritis

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