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Layoffs and pipeline cuts have been a part and parcel of the biopharma industry, and lately, it has been no different. However, there has been one company waiting for biotechs to hit their lowest point before striking: Concentra Biosciences. Now, in its latest move, Concentra has taken over troubled CAR-T developer Cargo Therapeutics.
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Cargo Therapeutics and IGM Biosciences welcome Concentra Biosciences’ acquisition
California-based Cargo Therapeutics has had a rough year with its CAR-T cell therapy firicabtagene autoleucel being discontinued after patients experienced toxic side effects in the clinic. The company deemed the data to “not support a competitive benefit-risk profile for patients.” Along with the pipeline cut, it axed half of its workforce back in January. By March, it had let go of 90% of its employees.
Looking for a way out, the drug developer was in the market for an acquisition.
Enter Concentra Biosciences.
The California-based company is paying $217.5 million to buy Cargo at $4.38 per share, Cargo announced last week. The CAR-T therapies company’s shareholders will also receive non-transferable contingent value rights to receive a share of any leftover money as well as 80% of sales of the company’s assets over the next two years. This could include its last remaining clinical candidate CRG-023, which is in phase 1 trials to treat blood cancers that originate in B cells.
This isn’t Concentra’s first acquisition rodeo. Not even the first one this month. It bought another California-based biotech, IGM Biosciences, for $82 million at $1.247 in cash per share of IGM’s common stock two weeks ago. As part of the deal, 80% of sales from certain IGM candidates – mainly antibodies – over the next year will be pocketed by IGM.
Like Cargo, IGM was also down in the dumps when Concentra swooped in. Having been around for 30 years – known as Palingen until a rebrand in 2010 – the antibody developer had started out to design IgM therapies. However, when Sanofi dumped IGM in May, it laid off 80% of its staff, shuttered lab and office spaces, and cut its final program from its pipeline.
This was following layoffs and halts to its blood cancer programs back in 2023 in an effort to stretch out its cash until mid 2025. This didn’t make much of a difference, as it ended the development of its last two internal candidates in January. But the Sanofi blow was the last straw.
A very busy year: Concentra Biosciences signs five acquisition deals in 2025
For a company that was founded two years ago, Concentra has been making a lot of moves. Apart from the IGM and Cargo buyouts, just this year it signed merger agreements with three struggling companies.
Massachusetts-based Elevation Oncology was purchased by Concentra, which paid 36 cents for each share of the cancer therapies company. The deal also allows Elevation’s shareholders to snag 80% of the proceeds of the potential sale of EO-1022, an antibody-drug conjugate developed by Elevation that targets and kills HER3-expressing cancer cells.
Elevation was not on the best terms with its investor BML Capital Management this year. After the drug developer dropped its only clinical-candidate EO-3021 in March, BML urged the company to wind down its operations.
Also staunchly against the idea of Elevation pursuing a reverse merger, Braden M. Leonard, founder of BML Capital Management, said in a letter to Elevation’s board of directors: “Given the current state of the public equity market and the biopharma sector specifically, along with the abysmal performance of several recent reverse mergers, I believe that the best course of action is a wind-down of operations and a return of all remaining cash to shareholders.”
BML supported the company’s plans to slash EO-3021 from its pipeline. EO-3021, which was being tested to treat certain stomach cancers, had flunked a phase 1 study in March. Elevation then culled 70% of its workforce, and in June, it welcomed Concentra’s bid to acquire it.
Allakos and Kronos now in the hands of Concentra Biosciences
Similarly, Concentra had seized Kronos Bio and Allakos in 2025. It snapped up Kronos for 57 cents per share, 35% below the biotech’s closing price of 89 cents back in May. The deal also included a contingent value right, which represents the small molecule therapeutics company’s right to receive 50% of the potential proceeds from its candidates KB-9558 and KB-7898 to treat cancer and autoimmune conditions, respectively, over the next two years. Plus, it includes all of the proceeds from its candidates KB-0742, lanraplenib, and entospletinib prior to closing.
Kronos had shut down its headquarters in California to cut costs. These were trying times for the American biotech, as it had dismissed 83% of its employees, including its then chief executive officer (CEO) in November. It had also paused the development of its final candidate, the CDK9 inhibitor drug istisociclib, which was flagged for safety issues in an early-stage clinical trial in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
As for the antibody developer Allakos, Concentra offered up $0.33 per share, which it agreed to in April. Prior to the acquisition, Allakos was on the brink of collapse, having scrapped the monoclonal antibody AK006, the last remaining asset from its portfolio. It had failed a phase 1 trial in hives. This led to 75% of its staff being laid off.
Allakos had shifted focus to AK006 last year after it canned its other monoclonal antibody lirentelimab. The company had high hopes for this drug at first, as it was found to prevent mast cell activation and deplete eosinophils, a type of white blood cell. But a string of phase 2 and 3 failures in eczema and eosinophilic gastrointestinal diseases – caused by an abnormal buildup of eosinophils – led to its discontinuation.
What do we know about Concentra Biosciences?
While Concentra has been busy racking up biotechs, little is known about this entity. Backed by the life science investor Tang Capital Partners, it appears it was set up in 2023 for the sole purpose of acquiring cash-strapped biotechs. It began its shopping spree, scooping up Massachusetts-based cancer therapeutics companies Jounce Therapeutics and Theseus Pharmaceuticals in 2023.
But Concentra hasn’t been lucky all around. Two faltering biotechs, namely Acelyrin and Pliant Therapeutics, rejected the company’s bids to acquire them, and ‘poison-pilled’ Concentra this year. The poison pill defense is a strategy that a company takes to avoid being acquired by activist investors or competitors, especially when they believe that the takeover will not be in the best interest of the company, according to a report by Investopedia.
By doing so, both the companies were able to enact a rule change in their investor operations. The change being that if a single investor got a hold of at least 10% of the company’s stock, it would make it harder for an unwanted buyer to procure shares. So, they managed to up their defense strategy to ward off Concentra.
The serial acquirer has also been shot down by companies like Atea Pharmaceuticals, Rain Oncology, LianBio, and Kezar Life Sciences in the past. But none of this has tired Concentra. In fact, the recent buyouts have probably emboldened it to hunt for more biotechs. Meanwhile, what Concentra will do with the remaining therapeutic assets it nabbed through all the acquisitions, we will have to watch out for.
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