A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(May 2024) |
Company type | Public |
---|---|
Industry | Pharmaceuticals |
Founded | April 7, 2014 |
Founder | Vivek Ramaswamy |
Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
Key people | Matt Gline (CEO) |
Revenue | US$61 million (fiscal 2023) |
US$−1.1 billion (fiscal 2023) | |
Total assets | US$2.39 billion (fiscal 2023) |
Total equity | US$1.61 billion (fiscal 2023) |
Owner | Vivek Ramaswamy (10.5%) |
Number of employees | ≈ 904 (March 2023) |
Website | roivant |
Footnotes /references [1] [2] |
Roivant Sciences Ltd. is a healthcare company focused on applying technology to drug development and building subsidiary biotech and healthcare technology companies. It was founded in 2014 by Vivek Ramaswamy.
Vivek Ramaswamy founded Roivant in 2014. [3] Ramaswamy's initial strategy was to in-license drug candidates and create subsidiaries focused on distinct therapeutic areas. [4] This strategy expanded to include developing earlier stage drug candidates and platform technologies. Roivant is a parent company to over a dozen subsidiaries ranging from Immunovant, a majority-owned public company focused on autoimmune diseases, to privately held Dermavant Sciences, a commercial-stage company [5] focused on medical dermatology. [6]
Roivant also develops healthcare technologies through its business unit Roivant Health. Roivant built and launched Datavant, which allows healthcare institutions to share data, and was merged with Coix [7] to become a $7 billion company. Roivant's technology portfolio also includes Lokavant, which integrates clinical trial data to identify and mitigate risks in pharmaceutical development. [6] [8] In 2017, Roivant partnered with the private equity arm of Chinese state-owned CITIC Group to form Sinovant. [9] [10] [11] As of 2019, Roivant had over forty investigational drugs in development in fourteen therapeutic areas across its family of companies. [12]
At the end of 2019, Roivant formed a $3 billion partnership with Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma and transferred its ownership stake in five of its subsidiaries: Myovant Sciences, Urovant Sciences, Enzyvant Therapeutics, Altavant Sciences, and Spirovant Sciences, which now sit under Sumitovant Biopharma. [13] The deal included the option for Sumitomo to acquire up to six additional subsidiaries. [14]
In April 2020, Roivant dosed the first patient in a clinical study evaluating gimsilumab in COVID-19 patients for the prevention and treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). [15] Additionally, in April, Datavant announced that its technology is being used to create a pro bono COVID-19 research database to help public health and policy researchers combat the pandemic. [16]
In January 2021, Ramaswamy stepped down as CEO. Matt Gline, previously the company's chief financial officer, became CEO. [17] In February 2021, Roivant acquired Silicon Therapeutics, a small-molecule drug designer and computational physics platform, for $450 million in Roivant equity. [18] [19] In October 2021, Roivant merged with special-purpose acquisition company Montes Archimedes Acquisition Corp. to become listed on the Nasdaq. [20]
In June 2022, Roivant and Pfizer unveiled Priovant Therapeutics. [21] Priovant was established in September 2021 through a transaction between Roivant and Pfizer, [22] in which Pfizer licensed oral and topical brepocitinib's global development rights and US and Japan commercial rights to Priovant. Pfizer holds a 25% equity ownership interest in Priovant. Brepocitinib is a potential first-in-class dual, selective inhibitor of TYK2 and JAK1; in all five placebo-controlled studies completed to date, oral brepocitinib generated statistically significant and clinically meaningful results. Later that year in December 2022, Roivant and Pfizer announced [23] their third partnership to create a new Vant [24] focused on developing TL1A drug candidates for inflammatory and fibrotic diseases. As of February 2023, Roivant's reported market cap was over $6 billion. [25]
Axovant, owned by Roivant's Sio Gene Therapies, which failed testing in the end, has been accused of being a pump-and-dump scheme. [26] [27] [28] [29]
In December 2023, Roche completed the acquisition of Telavant from Roivant for a purchase price of $7.1 billion upfront and a near-term milestone payment of $150 million. [30] [31]
As of April 2020, the company's subsidiaries include:
The following subsidiaries were previously a part of Roivant, but were included as part of a strategic transaction with Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma which closed in December 2019: [35]
Roivant is a major shareholder of Datavant, which was co-founded with Travis May to link disparate healthcare datasets. [41] In October 2020, Datavant announced it raised funds from Roivant alongside Transformation Capital, Johnson & Johnson, and Cigna. [42]
In June 2018, Roivant laid off 67 employees and reassigned 130 to subsidiaries. [43]
In March 2020, Roivant announced it is developing gimsilumab, an anti-granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (anti-GM-CSF) monoclonal antibody to prevent and treat acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in patients with COVID-19. [44] In April 2020, Roivant started the administration of gimsilumab to COVID-19 patients in the United States. [45]
The company received millions of dollars from hedge funds such as QVT in the early days of its existence. [46] Later, it was able to raise US$200 million, with help from NovaQuest Capital Management. [47]
Pfizer Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered at The Spiral in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer (1824–1906) and his cousin Charles F. Erhart (1821–1891).
Biogen Inc. is an American multinational biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States specializing in the discovery, development, and delivery of therapies for the treatment of neurological diseases to patients worldwide. Biogen operates in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland.
AstraZeneca plc (AZ) is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, England. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas including oncology, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, infection, neuroscience, respiratory, and inflammation. It has been involved in developing the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, commonly known as Roche, is a Swiss multinational holding healthcare company that operates worldwide under two divisions: Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics. Its holding company, Roche Holding AG, has shares listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange. The company headquarters are located in Basel. Roche is the fifth-largest pharmaceutical company in the world by revenue and the leading provider of cancer treatments globally. In 2023, the company’s seat in Forbes Global 2000 was 76.
Pharmacia & Upjohn was a global pharmaceutical company formed by the merger of Sweden-based Pharmacia AB and the American company Upjohn in 1995. Today the remainder of the company is owned by Pfizer. In 1997, Pharmacia & Upjohn sold several brands to Johnson & Johnson, including Motrin and Cortaid.
On July 1, 2023, Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc. became part of Sumitomo Pharma America, Inc., a science-based, technology-driven biopharmaceutical company focused on delivering therapeutic and scientific breakthroughs in areas of critical patient need spanning psychiatry and neurology, oncology, urology, women's health, rare disease, and cell and gene therapies.
Astellas Pharma Inc. is a Japanese multinational pharmaceutical company, formed on 1 April 2005 from the merger of Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd..
Sumitomo Pharma Company Limited is a Japanese multinational pharmaceutical company. The company is focused on oncology, psychiatry, neurology, women's health issues, urological diseases among other areas. Its headquarters are located in Chuo-ku, Osaka.
Santaris Pharma A/S was a biopharmaceutical company founded in 2003 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The company also had a branch in San Diego, California that opened in 2009. Created by a merger between Cureon and Pantheco, Santaris developed RNA-targeted medicines using a Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA) Drug Platform and Drug Development Engine.
Moderna, Inc. is a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that focuses on RNA therapeutics, primarily mRNA vaccines. These vaccines use a copy of a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA) to carry instructions for proteins to produce an immune response. The company's name is derived from the terms "modified", "RNA", and "modern".
Sio Gene Therapies, Inc. was a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company that developed gene therapies to treat neurological disorders. The company was headquartered in New York City and was incorporated in Basel, Switzerland. The company was founded by former hedge fund analyst and 2024 Republican Party presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in October 2014 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Roivant Sciences, which was itself founded in May 2014.
SOTIO Biotech is a Czech biotechnology company focused on clinical-stage research and development of innovative medicines for cancer with operations in Europe, North America, and Asia. The company has clinical programs which include a superagonist of the immuno-oncology target IL-15, a new generation of potent and stable antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), proprietary technology designed to improve on the efficacy of CAR T therapies and a platform to streamline and enhance personalized cell therapies.
Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy is an American entrepreneur and politician. He founded Roivant Sciences, a pharmaceutical company, in 2014. In February 2023, Ramaswamy declared his candidacy for the Republican Party nomination in the 2024 United States presidential election. He suspended his campaign in January 2024, after finishing fourth in the Iowa caucuses.
Fortress Biotech Inc., commonly known as Fortress Bio, is a biopharmaceutical company that acquires, develops, and commercializes innovative pharmaceutical and biotechnology products. Led by CEO Lindsay A. Rosenwald, M.D., Fortress and most of its subsidiary companies are headquartered in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida.
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BIOTECanada, or the Industrial Biotechnology Association of Canada, is a Canadian biotechnology industry association based in Ottawa, Ontario. It is an industry-funded membership organization composed of over 250 national and international pharmaceutical and gene therapy companies, medical device manufacturers, agricultural science businesses, law firms, academic institutions, research and development networks, advertising agencies, insurance companies and financial services firms.
In 2014, Mr. Ramaswamy founded Roivant Sciences — incorporated in the tax haven of Bermuda and backed by nearly $100 million in funding from investors including QVT, a hedge fund that employed Mr. Ramaswamy after college.