Pfizer Buys Icagen In Pain Drug Deal

Pfizer has agreed to pay $6.00 per share, or $50 million, for Research Triangle Park, N.C.-based Icagen, which offers ion-channel modulation technology. After taking into consideration the 11% of Icagen’s shares that Pfizer already owns, the deal values the company at $56 million. The acquisition comes four years after the two companies partnered to develop sodium-ion-channel modulators for the treatment of pain disorders. More recently, the firms linked with Yale University to study whether modulating Nav1.7 channels could alleviate the severe pain experienced by people with inherited erythromelalgia.