For $300 million upfront, Bayer is purchasing Perfuse Therapeutics to advance an eye implant for glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, marking the company’s first pharma acquisition since 2021.

After abstaining from acquisitions for almost five years, Bayer is once again bringing out the checkbook, this time with an eye toward boosting its ophthalmology portfolio. Wednesday, the pharma moved to absorb Perfuse Therapeutics and its drug candidate for glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.

Bayer is fronting $300 million for the deal and promising certain developmental, regulatory and commercial milestones. All told, the acquisition value could reach $2.45 billion, according to a press announcement. The companies did not specify when they expect the transaction to close.

Perfuse’s only asset is PER-001, an intravitreal implant designed to provide sustained doses of a small-molecule endothelin receptor blocker. The endothelin cascade is involved in vasoconstriction—the process by which blood vessels tighten to restrict the flow of blood. Excessive endothelin levels can starve cells and lead to organ damage, including in the eyes, according to Perfuse’s website.

Leveraging this mechanism, PER-001 is in mid-stage development for open-angle glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. But Perfuse is also positioning the drug, a small molecule endothelin receptor antagonist, as a potential therapy for dry age-related macular degeneration and retinal vein occlusion. This program is still in the very early stages of development.

Once the acquisition closes, Bayer will have full rights over PER-001, though the pharma has yet to provide a more detailed plan for how it plans to take the asset forward.

The last time Bayer did a drug-driven takeover was in August 2021, when it swallowed Vividion Therapeutics for $1.5 billion. Under Bayer, Vividion continued to operate as an independent subsidiary and advanced the STAT3 blocker VVD-130850 for solid tumors and hematologic cancers. Bayer pulled the plug on this asset in November 2025, according to reporting from Fierce Biotech.

Other notable pharma purchases from Bayer in the past include Asklepios BioPharmaceutical for up to $4 billion in October 2020 and KaNDy Therapeutics for $875 million in August 2020.

Viridian Therapeutics’ elegrobart normalized the degree of eye protrusion and improved double vision in a Phase 3 study. The company plans to file for approval in the first quarter of 2027.

Viridian Therapeutics’ thyroid eye disease drug significantly normalized the degree of eye protrusion in a Phase 3 study of thyroid eye disease, setting the stage for a potential comeback in this indication.

In REVEAL-2, data from which were unveiled in a news release on Tuesday, one dose of elegrobart every four weeks resulted in a proptosis responder rate (PRR) of 50%, versus 15% for placebo at 24 weeks. Proptosis refers to the abnormal protrusion of the eyes, a common symptom in thyroid eye disease (TED).

The treatment effect was statistically significant in favor of elegrobart. The same was true for treatment given every eight weeks, with a PRR of 54%.

Alongside proptosis response, Viridian on Tuesday also touted positive benefits of elegrobart for double vision, or diplopia.

“We believe these results strengthen the clinical profile for elegrobart,” analysts at William Blair told investors on Tuesday. “With two positive, large Phase III studies now in hand, elegrobart looks approvable and commercially competitive.”

These results point to elegrobart’s “IV-like efficacy in a convenient, self-administered subcutaneous therapy with as few as four administrations” for a complete course, the analysts added.

Truist Securities was more direct about elegrobart’s competitive edge, writing in a Tuesday note that the drug’s “more-convenient offering could bring a large proportion of the TED patients off the sidelines.”

Approximately 30% of patient candidates for Amgen’s Tepezza “opt to stay off therapy given the logistical/administrative burden,” the analysts added. Elegrobart, if approved, could provide these patients with a more acceptable treatment option.

The new data vindicate the company and elegrobart, after an underwhelming readout in March from the Phase 3 REVEAL-1 trial, which found placebo-adjusted PRR ranging from 36% to 45%, falling behind the investor expectation of 51% to 73%.

Viridian’s stock crashed by as much as 33% in the aftermath of these results. With Tuesday’s new data, however, the biotech soared nearly 39% to $18.75 by market close yesterday, though the price bump still isn’t enough to recoup Viridian’s initial loss in March.

Viridian plans to file an approval package for elegrobart in the first quarter of 2027, according to its Tuesday release.

While some analysts may regard Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ first quarter results as “unremarkable,” BMO Capital Markets wrote on Monday, the second half of 2026 could be big for the biotech, with the potential approval of IgAN therapy povetacicept.

The first quarter of 2026 was relatively uneventful for Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which has delivered a largely expected print across its business that continues to be anchored by cystic fibrosis.

While some may regard this steady performance as “unremarkable,” analysts at BMO Capital Markets see it as consistency—and as a prelude to what could be an evolution of Vertex’s portfolio “that may be nothing short of iconic,” they wrote in a note to investors Monday evening.

In particular, the group pointed to Vertex’s fusion protein therapeutic povetacicept, for which the biotech has “recently” completed its rolling biologics application in IgA nephropathy (IgAN), according to its Q1 earnings release on Monday. Vertex hasn’t yet announced a specific target action date for the asset, only noting that a decision should come six months after the FDA accepts the application.

In March, Vertex toplined Phase 3 data for povetacicept, touting a 49.8% reduction in proteinuria at 36 weeks, as compared with placebo. The trial, dubbed RAINIER, also hit a key secondary endpoint, showing a 79.3% decrease in serum galactose-deficient IgA1 levels versus placebo.

Analysts have consistently been bullish about povetacicept’s performance. BMO in a March 9 note said, “We continue to be encouraged by the strength of povetacicept’s data as Vertex works to build a new pillar of their business.” In its note on Monday, the analysts called RAINIER’s data “strong,” adding that they “remain confident in the asset’s differentiation.”

With these “differentiated” efficacy data and “well-tolerated profile,” Vertex’s goal is for povetacicept “to be physicians’ first choice for their IgAN patients,” Chief Commercial Officer Duncan McKechnie said during the company’s earnings call Monday afternoon.

Aside from IgAN, Vertex is also testing povetacicept for primary membranous nephropathy and generalized myasthenia gravis. The company is also beefing up its renal franchise with the Phase 3 asset inaxaplin for APOL1-mediated kidney disease and a Phase 2 asset VX-407 for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease.

Interim Phase 2/3 data for inaxaplin are slated for “early 2027,” according to BMO.

Together, these programs could rival and even surpass Vertex’s cystic fibrosis business and become the company’s cornerstone portfolio, CEO Reshma Kewalramani said on the earnings call. “The diseases that these medicines treat are rare diseases, but they are common rare diseases. And when you add them all up together, they are well into the hundreds of thousands of patients.”

In the first quarter, Vertex brought in $2.99 billion, up 8% from the same period in 2025. Cystic fibrosis continues to anchor the company’s revenue, growing 7% year-on-year to $1.78 billion. Newer products, however, including the non-opioid pain drug Journavx and the sickle cell disease gene therapy Casgevy, continued to struggle, with $29 million and $43 million in Q1 sales, respectively.

The selloff in Eli Lilly’s shares was “overdone,” according to RBC Capital Markets, which noted that the overall safety profile of Foundayo remains favorable.

A single case of hepatic failure associated with Eli Lilly’s weight-loss pill Foundayo has been picked up by the FDA’s adverse events monitoring system, raising concerns about the drug’s overall safety profile.

Investors appeared to be spooked by the toxicity, pulling the pharma’s shares down by as much as 3% before Monday’s opening bell, according to analysts at RBC Capital Markets. The analysts, however, urged level-headedness: “one liver case does not make a signal,” they wrote in a note later that day. Lilly’s shares have since normalized, closing the trading session up 0.48%.

Lilly, too, told BioSpace in an email that the event had been investigated upon report to the company and dismissed as not drug related.

“In line with our standard procedures, Lilly Global Patient Safety thoroughly assessed the individual report, which was submitted within days of commercial availability, and determined it was not reasonably related to Foundayo,” a company spokesperson said.

RBC called the selloff an “overreaction.”

The episode of liver failure was documented in the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), an expansive database that collects all reports of drug side effects. Anyone can log cases to FAERS, including doctors, manufacturers and even consumers. The FDA itself cautions that “there is no certainty that the reported event . . . was due to the product.”

Evercore ISI was likewise measured in its assessment of the liver failure, writing in a Monday note that “we cannot look at this single liver case in a silo … and such cases do tend to occur on other GLPs as well because of various confounding factors.”

Evercore analysts broke down known hepatic failure cases for other GLP-1 drugs, tallying 30 for Mounjaro and two for Zepbound, both of which are marketed by Lilly. For Novo Nordisk’s drugs, Evercore found 33 cases of liver failure associated with Ozempic and 15 with Wegovy.

The heightened vigilance over the liver safety of Foundayo—and other weight-loss treatments more broadly—is driven by the failure of Pfizer’s initial obesity push, both Evercore and RBC analysts explained.

The pharma had previously pinned its obesity hopes on the GLP-1 pill danuglipron, which was dogged by safety concerns throughout its relatively short development life. In December 2023, Pfizer abandoned a twice-daily schedule for danuglipron due to high rates of gastrointestinal side effects but continued on with the drug. Ultimately, liver injury risks cropped up that would prove fatal for the molecule. The pharma finally pulled the plug on danuglipron in April 2025.

Lilly said that Foundayo has been tested in 11,000 patients for up to two years across the clinical program that supported its approval. In seven Phase 3 trials for the drug, the liver safety profile was similar to placebo and comparator medicines.

“No cases of drug-induced liver injury (Hy’s Law) were observed and there was no hepatic safety signal,” the spokesperson told BioSpace. Hy’s Law is a medical principle that helps predict drug-induced liver injury.