Roche’s deal is the latest example of a big pharma company turning to the deal table to bolster its pipeline of autoimmune drugs. Photo: Philipp Schmidli/Bloomberg NewsRoche Holding has agreed to buy the developer of a bowel-disease treatment from Roivant Sciences , a company started by Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy , and Pfizer in a deal worth more than $7 billion. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant said Monday it would pay $7.1 billion upfront for Telavant Holdings, and make a near-term milestone payment of $150 million. Roche said the deal gives it rights to commercialize Telavant’s RVT-3101 drug candidate, which has shown promise for inflammatory-bowel disease and could have potential in other indications, in the U.S. and Japan.

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Persons: Philipp Schmidli, Vivek Ramaswamy, Roche Organizations: pharma, Bloomberg, Roche Holding, Roivant Sciences, Republican, Pfizer, Telavant Holdings, Telavant’s Locations: Swiss, U.S, Japan