{"id":34544,"date":"2026-06-11T12:09:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T12:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/34544\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T12:09:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T12:09:45","slug":"bayer-buys-perfuse-in-2-4b-deal-for-ph-2-eye-disease-prospect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/34544\/","title":{"rendered":"Bayer buys Perfuse in $2.4B deal for ph. 2 eye disease prospect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Bayer has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesswire.com\/news\/home\/20260505596100\/en\/Bayer-to-Acquire-Perfuse-Therapeutics-to-Complement-Ophthalmology-Pipeline\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">struck<\/a> a deal to buy Perfuse Therapeutics for $300 million upfront. The buyout, which includes up to $2.15 billion in milestones, will give Bayer control of an eye disease implant that Perfuse\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/perfusetherapeutics.com\/perfuse-therapeutics-announces-positive-results-from-phase-2-clinical-trials-in-glaucoma-and-diabetic-retinopathy-patients\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">linked<\/a> to improved outcomes in a pair of phase 2 trials last year.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">San Francisco-based Perfuse is focused on PER-001, an intravitreal implant that delivers an endothelin antagonist to the eye. Endothelin-1, a vasoconstrictor, is upregulated in glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration. By blocking endothelin signaling, PER-001 could improve blood flow and prevent cell death in the retinas of patients with eye diseases.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Bayer has identified the drug candidate as a good fit for its capabilities. The German drugmaker sells the Regeneron-partnered anti-VEGF drug Eylea in Europe for the treatment of multiple eye diseases. Eylea is Bayer\u2019s biggest drug,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bayer.com\/sites\/default\/files\/2026-03\/bayer-annual-report-2025.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">generating<\/a> 3.1 billion euros ($3.7 billion) last year.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The drug is coming toward the end of its lifecycle and sales fell last year, but Bayer has lacked a successor. The company\u2019s cell therapy unit, BlueRock Therapeutics,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bayer.com\/en\/us\/news-stories\/treatment-of-primary-photoreceptor-diseases-0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">started<\/a> a phase 1\/2a study in primary photoreceptor diseases last year, but its late-phase pipeline skews toward cancer and cardiovascular and renal disease.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Buying Perfuse will give Bayer a more advanced eye disease drug candidate. Perfuse reported phase 2 data on PER-001 in glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy last year. While primarily designed to evaluate the safety of PER-001, the studies generated early evidence that the drug candidate improves vision.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">At the time, Perfuse outlined plans to start larger and longer pivotal trials in both indications in the back half of 2025. However, there are currently no phase 3 studies on the federal trials database that name PER-001 as the intervention or Perfuse as the sponsor. The candidate is in phase 2, Bayer said in the press release about the takeover, which lacks a timeline for further development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bayer has\u00a0struck a deal to buy Perfuse Therapeutics for $300 million upfront. The buyout, which includes up to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21161],"tags":[21182,31842,21836,22500,31841,22502,31859,652],"class_list":["post-34544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bayer","tag-bayer","tag-biotech","tag-deals","tag-diabetic-retinopathy","tag-fierce-biotech-homepage","tag-glaucoma","tag-implantable-drug-delivery","tag-mergers-and-acquisitions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}