On November 29, 2021, Blueprint Medicines Corporation announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement under which it will acquire Lengo Therapeutics, a privately held precision oncology company, for $250 million in cash plus up to $215 million in additional potential payments based on the achievement of certain regulatory approval and sales-based milestones. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati’s patents and innovations group has served as patent counsel for Lengo Therapeutics since its inception and represented the company in patent matters related to the acquisition.
The acquisition includes Lengo Therapeutics’ lead compound LNG-451, a potential best-in-class oral precision therapy in development for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients with EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations. Lengo Therapeutics anticipates it will submit an investigational new drug (IND) application for LNG-451 to the FDA in December 2021. With the addition of LNG-451, Blueprint Medicines will have three investigational compounds that cover the majority of all activating mutations in EGFR, the second most common oncogenic driver in NSCLC. The acquisition also brings additional undisclosed preclinical precision oncology programs and research tools, including a catalog of covalent, highly brain-penetrant kinase inhibitors that Blueprint Medicines plans to add to its proprietary compound library to further enable future drug discovery efforts.
The Wilson Sonsini patents and innovations team that advised Lengo Therapeutics on the transaction was led by Deborah Smith and included Michael Hostetler.