Cerecor acquires New York biopharmaceutical company for $26.6M in stock

Baltimore-based Cerecor announced the acquisition of Ichorion Therapeutics, a New York–based biopharmaceutical company.
The deal includes an all-stock transaction worth up to $26.6 million, with potential for an additional $15 million in milestones, which could be paid in cash or stock.
Cerecor is headquartered downtown and is one of more than 20 publicly-traded biotech companies in Maryland. The seven-year-old company focuses on treatments for orphan disorders, which are diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people worldwide. Earlier this year, the company brought on Peter Greenleaf, the former president of Gaithersburg-based MedImmue and CEO of Rockville-based Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, as CEO.
For its part, Ichorion Therapeutics specializes in Inborn Errors of Metabolism (IMEs), which are rare diseases that affect the body’s ability to break down food. The company has a pipeline of genetically-targeted therapies, which Cerecor said will fit within its treatments in development for pediatrics.
It could also bring international expansion for Cerecor.
“The current focus of Cerecor is primarily the U.S., however the addition of the Ichorion assets and the ultra-rare nature of these disorders could provide the opportunity for expansion of the commercial and medical footprint with academic collaborators abroad,” the company wrote in a statement.
Former Ichorion President Patrick J. Crutcher will become Cerecor VP of Business Development, and Chief Scientific Officer Stephen Thomas will also assume a VP role as Head of Discovery.
The deal is the latest in a series of acquisitions for Cerecor, which also brought in TRx Pharmaceuticals and Avadel Pharmaceuticals in the last year.