Author: Sarah Cork, Ph.D.

Early-stage biotech companies generally understand that intellectual property management, in particular, patenting their crown-jewel technology, is a critical component of sound business strategy. But how might investment in the development of a patent portfolio pay off down the line?

For inspiration, companies might look to some of last year’s biggest exits, such as the eleven-figure acquisitions of Intra-Cellular Therapies, Avidity Biosciences, and Metsera.

As summarized below, these acquisition stories show that there is no single path to huge commercial success. The companies’ technologies are diverse. They faced different competitive landscapes.

Each company’s development arc is similar, however, in that they obtained broad patent protection for their core assets. This should not be too surprising, since patent protection is foundational to a biotech company’s competitive moat.

The companies’ patenting strategies are as unique as their technologies, however. The stories below are a helpful reminder that startups do not need to adhere to a particular patenting strategy to succeed. Their individual approaches to portfolio growth reveal different strategies that may be useful for companies that hope to achieve a similar outcome.

J&J Acquisition of Intra-Cellular Therapies

The largest biotech exits in 2025 occurred in January, when Johnson & Johnson acquired Intra-Cellular Therapies for $14.6 billion.[1]  Intra-Cellular’s assets included clinical stage and approved therapeutics for various neurological disorders, including its drug Caplyta® (lumateperone) for schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, and other candidates in development for generalized anxiety disorder and Alzheimer’s-related psychosis.

The groundwork was laid nearly 25 years earlier, however.  Intra-Cellular initially incorporated in 2001.  Its patent portfolio development began as early as 2002, with a university license and research agreement.[2]

Over the next two decades, Intra-Cellular built up a patent portfolio covering other technologies associated with still investigational lumateperone.  As examples, as early as 2009, Intra-Cellular pursued patents on pharmaceutical compositions[3] and crystalline structures[4] of lumateperone, including methods of using specific crystalline forms for therapeutic purposes,[5] and continued to pursue patent coverage on salt forms through at least 2018.[6]   Over the years, it expanded its portfolio for methods of treatment, ranging from sleep disorders in 2008[7] to bipolar disorder in 2013,[8] schizophrenia in 2014[9] and depression in 2018,[10] indicating continued investment into diverse potential indications.

Intra-Cellular’s strategy paid off, helping maintain the lumateperone program’s value despite headwinds.  Notably, when Intra-Cellular was acquired, it was already mired in Hatch-Waxman litigation against seven generic companies due to the imminent expiry of its “base” composition of matter patents on lumateperone.  One challenger settled the same month, however, under terms that generic sales could begin in 2040 (currently, the latest patent expiry date listed for Caplyta® in the Orange Book), suggestive of the strength of the overall Caplyta® patent moat.[12]

Novartis Acquisition of Avidity Biosciences

In October 2025, Novartis acquired Avidity Biosciences, a biotech innovator in RNA-based therapeutics for $12 billion.[14]  In reporting on the acquisition, Novartis touted Avidity’s unique antibody-olignonucleotide conjugates (AOCs), which enable targeted delivery of oligonucleotide drugs to muscle tissue, and the potential for multiple blockbuster opportunities before 2030.[15]

Novartis also noted that Avidity’s assets were expected to drive substantial sales and profit growth through the 2040’s.[16]  This advantage is the product of Avidity’s strategy in developing its AOC patent portfolio, a portfolio that is notable both for the scope of its coverage and how quickly it grew.

Avidity’s portfolio diversified relatively quickly.  By 2020, Avidity held multiple patent applications covering each of its AOC drug candidates, including investigational assets for treating myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), Duchenne muscular dystrophy, muscle atrophy, and Pompe disease.[19]  These applications covered diverse technologies for each candidate, e.g., composition of matter, formulations, methods of manufacturing, and methods of treating disease.  Additionally, Avidity’s portfolio covered its AOC platform technology, including antibodies, oligonucleotide structures and sequences, AOC structures, and methods for manufacturing and using AOCs.

Of note, the AOC product and platform patent families are both predicted to expire between 2038-2040,[20] indicating that many priority filings for both families generally occurred between 2017-2020.  Thus, the acquisition’s value is due (in no small part) to Avidity’s heavy investment in patent protection for its core technologies during that relatively short time frame.

Key Takeaways:

Avidity’s decision to invest in patent prosecution for multiple different drug candidates, and diverse types of patent protection for each, would have been expensive.  Because Avidity pursued these filings near-simultaneously, these costs would have built up quickly.

Avidity’s investment paid off, however, because Novartis acquired multiple lead assets with similar patent terms.  This purchase gives Novartis multiple “shots on goal” and the ability to pivot if, for example, any particular AOC asset underperforms therapeutically, and likely with fewer potential consequences to patent term (and thereby asset value) than if Avidity had pursued a seriatim patenting strategy for individual AOCs over a longer period of time.

Each startup will be uniquely situated in terms of its technology and financial capabilities.  For companies with unapproved pharmaceutical assets, Avidity’s arc exemplifies the potential benefits of maximizing patent coverage of potential drug candidates, despite the increased up-front costs, rather than front-loading IP spend on a promising lead asset and delaying protection of other prospects in the pipeline.

Pfizer Acquisition of Metsera

In late 2025, Pfizer acquired Metsera for more than $10 billion (factoring in contingent rights).[21]  Metsera’s pipeline, comprising injectable and oral GLP-1 receptor agonists and amylin analogs, expands Pfizer’s presence in the burgeoning market for obesity and cardiometabolic therapies.

Unsurprisingly, Metsera’s portfolio encompassed families covering each of its six lead investigational assets.  It is noteworthy, however, for the extent to which this coverage was founded on in-licensed university technology and Metsera’s acquisitions of other entities’ drug candidates—a strategy which allowed Metsera to rocket to success nearly three years after its founding in 2022.[22]

By December 2024, for example, Metsera’s portfolio included 42 issued U.S. and foreign patents, with more than a hundred pending patent applications across multiple jurisdictions, covering its investigational products.[23]  These patent rights, and the assets they cover[24], were in-licensed from other entities, including an organization developed to commercialize university technology.  In contrast, Metsera’s self-owned portfolio at that time was limited to two provisional filings.

Key Takeaways:

Metsera’s approach illustrates how the nature of the technology itself can drive patent strategy.  In a relatively nascent technological field, with few competitors, a company’s investment in building a broad portfolio from scratch may pay off well in the long run.

In contrast, when the therapeutic space is already relatively crowded, as it was for Metsera, in light of the universal excitement over the promise of anti-obesity drugs, it may be more cost-effective for a company to begin by acquiring underleveraged patent assets from other sources, such as universities and their spin-offs.

In addition, to avoid potentially wasteful spending on patent prosecution that may yield limited rewards, startups may benefit from investing early on in evaluating the potential patentability of their assets, as well as their freedom to operate amid other companies’ patent portfolios.

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[1] https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/top-10-biopharma-ma-deals-2025.
[2] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1567514/000119312513370468/d592775ds1.htm.
[3] E.g., U.S. Patent No. 9,616,061.
[4] E.g., U.S. Patent No. 8,648,077.
[5] E.g., U.S. Patent No. 9,199,995.
[6] E.g., U.S. Patent Nos. 11,806,348, 11,690,842.
[7] E.g., U.S. Patent No. RE48,839.
[8] E.g., U.S. Patent No. 11,026,951.
[9] E.g., U.S. Patent No. 9,956,227.
[10] E.g., U.S. Patent No. 11,980,617.
[11] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1567514/000119312519054119/d678830d10k.htm.
[12] https://insights.citeline.com/generics-bulletin/legalandip/sandoz-settlement-suggests-jj-buyout-caplyta-may-be-tough-nut-to-crack-GY2GOA4HTBEP7J4YPKDN2YIF7A/.
[13] https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/abbvie-wins-appeal-antitrust-case-over-humira-patent-thicket-2022-08-02/.
[14] https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/novartis-ceo-paid-top-dollar-avidity-become-leader-neuromuscular-diseases.
[15] https://www.novartis.com/sites/novartiscom/files/novartis-avidity-acquisition-presentation.pdf.
[16] https://www.novartis.com/sites/novartiscom/files/novartis-avidity-acquisition-presentation.pdf.
[17] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1599901/000119312520150102/d897644ds1.htm.
[18] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1599901/000159990125000094/rna-2024123110xk.pdf.
[19] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1599901/000119312520150102/d897644ds1.htm.
[20] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1599901/000119312520150102/d897644ds1.htm.
[21] https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-completes-acquisition-metsera.
[22] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/30/healthy-returns-pfizers-new-obesity-bet-metsera-releases-drug-data.html.
[23] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2040807/000119312525004504/d900229ds1.htm.
[24] Metsera noted that its assets “include our MINT peptide library” of “approximately 20,000 NuSH analog peptides, which were developed through over 20 years of iterative and empirical discovery work . . . at Imperial College London” and licensed to Zihipp, a company founded by the ICL professor who developed the NuSH analogs.  Metsera “subsequently acquired Zihipp and those underlying rights, laying the foundation for the development of most of our current pipeline and our MINT peptide library.”  https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2040807/000119312525004504/d900229ds1.htm.

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