Sandoz Closes Deal to Acquire Ranibizumab Biosimilar Cimerli from Coherus

Sandoz has completed the acquisition of the US biosimilar Cimerli (ranibizumab-eqrn) from Coherus BioSciences.

In January, in a move to pay down debt and focus on its oncology business, Coherus BioSciences entered into an agreement to divest its Cimerli (ranibizumab-eqrn) ophthalmology franchise to Sandoz for $170 million in cash, plus Cimerli inventory costs. This divestiture included Coherus’ Cimerli biologics license application, ophthalmology sales, select field reimbursement teams, Cimerli product inventory on hand, and access to proprietary commercial software.

Cimerli is an FDA-approved biosimilar to reference product Lucentis indicated for the treatment of multiple retinal diseases, including wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), macular edema following retinal vein occlusion (RVO), diabetic macular edema (DME), diabetic retinopathy (DR), and myopic choroidal neovascularization (CNV). Cimerli was approved by the FDA in August 2022, and launched in October 2022 as the first and only FDA-approved biosimilar interchangeable with Lucentis for all indications.