Private Equity Companies Set To Buy Medical Supply Maker Medline

Modern Healthcare: Medline To Be Sold To Private Equity Group For $30B
A group of private equity firms that includes Blackstone Group are buying Medline, according to the medical supply maker and distributor. The deal is valued at $30 billion, according to some sources. The Northfield, Ill.-based manufacturer reported $17.5 billion in revenue in 2020. Other investors include Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman. A press release announcing the deal said the privately held company, founded in 1910 by A.J. Mills, will remain under the leadership of the Mills family. (6/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Medline Deal Signals Return To Days Of Huge Leveraged Buyouts
The acquisition of Medline Industries Inc. that was agreed to over the weekend, the biggest leveraged buyout in more than a decade, serves as the clearest sign yet that the appetite for megadeals is rising as the pandemic eases and private-equity firms look to deploy mountains of cash. Blackstone Group Inc., Carlyle Group Inc. and Hellman & Friedman LLC said Saturday they struck a buyout deal that, according to people familiar with the matter, values the closely held medical-supply company at more than $30 billion—or around $34 billion including debt. That makes it the largest leveraged buyout since the 2007-08 financial crisis. (Lombardo and Gottfried, 6/6)

In other pharmaceutical and biotech developments —

Axios: FDA Approves First Weight-Loss Drug Since 2014 
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved Wegovy, a version of a diabetes medicine that can now be marketed and sold as a weight-loss drug in the United States. The drug helped certain people lose an average of 15% of their body weight over multiple weeks when used alongside increased physical activity and a reduced calorie meal plan. (Knutson, 6/5)

Stat: Fate's Natural Killer Cells Induce Responses In Blood Cancer Patients
Fate Therapeutics said Friday that an experimental, off-the-shelf immunotherapy made from so-called natural killer cells induced complete tumor responses in just over half of the patients with advanced lymphoma treated in an early-stage clinical trial. The 56% complete response rate reported for the Fate cancer treatment, called FT516, is still preliminary — and assessed from just 11 patients — but it is similar to efficacy reported with other types of cell therapy. However, the durability of the response to FT516 remains an important, unanswered question. (Feuerstein, 6/4)

Axios: Biogen Banks On Alzheimer's Drug To Offset Tecfidera Cliff 
Multiple sclerosis drug Tecfidera has propped up Biogen for the past eight years, representing more than a third of the company's sales. But that revenue wave is coming to an end after generic versions of the pill entered the U.S. market last year. Biogen is banking on federal approval of its Alzheimer's drug, aducanumab, to boost its financial future and offset the decline of Tecfidera. (Herman, 6/7)

Stat: Biotech, Health Startups Bet On A Strange New Reality Show For Crowdfunding
"Mount up! Let’s hear more about this unicorn.” So begins every episode of a new reality show called “Unicorn Hunters,” built around an outlandish twist on a well-worn premise: What if people could actually invest in the startups they see on television? It gets weirder from there. (Sheridan, 6/7)

Bloomberg: Holmes’s Silence On Mental Defense Spurs Prosecutors’ Questions
The latest mystery in the prosecution of Elizabeth Holmes is whether she still plans to claim she was suffering from a “mental disease or defect” when she allegedly duped investors into backing Theranos Inc. In a court filing, prosecutors are asking why a 46-page questionnaire Holmes wants to use to vet jurors for her trial in three months doesn’t include a single question related to the mental-health defense her legal team was exploring last year. This line of defense hasn’t been discussed in public filings or hearings for almost nine months -- until now. (Blumberg and Nayak, 6/5)