Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, a Waltham cancer biotech, said Monday it will be bought by Ono Pharmaceutical for $2.4 billon to expand the Japanese firm’s oncology portfolio and spur its growth in the United States and Europe.
Ono will pay $25.60 per Deciphera share in cash, a premium of nearly 75 percent on the biotech’s closing price of $14.65 on Friday. Ono is one of the largest drug companies in Japan with roots that go back to 1717.
The boards of both companies have approved the deal.
Deciphera has won approval of a treatment for stomach cancer in the United States and about 40 other countries. Founded in 2003, the firm has a pipeline of multiple potential medicines for other forms of cancer.
“Deciphera and Ono share a deep commitment to improve the lives of people living with cancer, and the transaction announced today enables us to make even greater impact for patients,” said Steven L. Hoerter, Deciphera’s president and chief executive.
Gyo Sagara, Ono’s chief executive and chairman of the board, said his firm expects that the “acquisition of Deciphera will not only expand Ono’s target oncology portfolio, but also accelerate Ono’s business development in the United States and Europe.”
In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration approved Deciphera’s drug Qinlock for adult patients with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumors, or GIST. The medicine is designed for people who have already tried three other drugs for that form of cancer.
Deciphera reported in 2019 that the medicine helped patients live a median of six months without their cancer spreading in a late-stage clinical trial. In comparison, the median length of time for the cancer to spread in patients who took a placebo was one month.
“There is a dire unmet need for new therapies that can deliver effective disease control for patients with advanced GIST who have failed currently approved treatment options,” Dr. Margaret von Mehren, an oncologist at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia who helped run the trial, said at the time.
She said Deciphera’s drug targets a broad spectrum of genetic mutations that fuel such tumors and “can significantly improve progression-free survival in the most heavily pretreated patients.”
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jonathan.saltzman@globe.com.