Roche to Buy Bowel-Disease Drug From Roivant, Pfizer for More Than $7 Billion

Roche Holding has agreed to buy the developer of a bowel-disease treatment from Roivant Sciences, a company started by Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and Pfizer in a deal worth more than $7 billion.

The Swiss pharmaceutical giant said Monday it would pay $7.1 billion upfront for Telavant Holdings, and make a near-term milestone payment of $150 million. Roche said the deal gives it rights to commercialize Telavant’s RVT-3101 drug candidate, which has shown promise for inflammatory-bowel disease and could have potential in other indications, in the U.S. and Japan.