Johnson & Johnson has agreed to acquire Halda Therapeutics for $3.05 billion cash, the companies said today, in a deal designed to expand the buyer’s cancer pipeline with Halda’s precision oncology candidates, led by a clinical-stage therapy for prostate cancer.
The prostate cancer lead candidate, HLD-0915, is a once-daily heterobifunctional small molecule designed to leverage full length AR (FL-AR) expression in tumor cells to form a trimeric complex by binding AR and Bromodomain-containing protein 4 (BRD4), an essential protein needed for cell survival. The binding causes BRD4 to lose function in prostate cancer cells.
Just last month, Halda announced positive data from a Phase I/II trial (NCT06800313) assessing HLD-0915 in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Among all 31 patients who received at least one dose of HLD-0915, 13 (31%) achieved a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) decline of 50% or more from baseline (PSA50), while seven (23%) achieved a PSA decline of 90% or more (PSA90). And among the 22 patients who completed at least two cycles of therapy, 59% achieved PSA50 while 32% achieved PSA90.
“Results seen with HLD-0915 demonstrate impressive preliminary efficacy and a strong early safety profile in prostate cancer,” John C. Reed, MD, PhD, J&J executive vice president, Innovative Medicine, R&D, said in a statement.
HLD-0915 anchors a Halda pipeline that includes several candidates in earlier development phases that are designed to treat forms of breast cancer, lung cancer, and multiple other tumor types.
Halda says its precision oncology candidates are designed to address the large unmet need of patients with tumors that have developed resistance to existing drugs.
The pipeline was developed using Halda’s Regulated Induced Proximity TArgeting Chimera (RIPTACTM) platform, which is designed to develop precision therapeutics capable of selectively targeting major solid tumor cancers and directly killing cancer cells.
RIPTAC uses an algorithm to help select complementary pairs to begin therapeutic design. The resulting products or RIPTACs are heterobifunctional molecules that hold two proteins together via a linker. One protein is tumor-specific, while the other performs an essential function.
The resulting protein-protein interaction nullifies the essential cell function, killing the cancer cells while sparing non-cancer tissue where the cancer-specific protein is absent or minimally expressed. RIPTAC therapeutics are designed to kill cancer cells independent of the oncogenic driver of the disease.
“Hold-and-kill”
It’s an approach that Halda calls “hold and kill”; the company’s name is Nordic for “Hold.” According to Halda, the “hold-and kill” mechanism has the potential to overcome the drug resistance common to present-day precision oncology therapies.
“The exciting thing about RIPTAC therapeutics is that they’re agnostic to tumor drivers,” Kat Kayser-Bricker, PhD, Halda’s chief scientific officer, told GEN Edge last year. “They can be oral small molecules, which is really a huge advantage over agents that have broad cell killing mechanisms like T-cell engaging bispecifics, or ADCs [antibody-drug conjugates] that are injectable therapies.
“Being able to have this broad efficacy with a small molecule oral therapy is a huge benefit to patients, and it’s designed to overcome the resistance that arises as patients progress on therapies,” Kayser-Bricker added.
Halda’s pipeline published online discloses only two candidates—HLD-0915 and a RIPTAC created to treat hormone receptor positive (HR+) metastatic breast cancer. The pipeline also includes an unspecified number of additional RIPTACs being developed for undisclosed indications.
The companies added that Halda’s pipeline and platform may also enable development of targeted therapies with indications that would not be limited to types of cancer.
“This acquisition further strengthens our deep oncology pipeline with an exciting lead asset in prostate cancer and a platform capable of treating multiple cancers and diseases beyond oncology, providing a potential mid- and long-term catalyst for growth,” stated Jennifer Taubert, J&J executive vice president, worldwide chairman, Innovative Medicine.
J&J shares rose nearly 2% on Monday, to $199.58 from $195.93 at Friday’s close, and were all but flat in early Tuesday trading, rising 0.04% to $199.66 as of 2:22 pm ET.
Halda is privately owned, most recently closing last year on a $126 million Series B extension that brought its total capital raised to $202 million. Proceeds from the Series B extension were designed to advance its first two candidates into the clinic.
Based in New Haven, CT, Halda was founded in 2019 to commercialize the research of Craig Crews, PhD, a Yale University professor and serial entrepreneur.
$50B+ annual sales goal
J&J is counting on HLD-0915 and other Halda candidates to eventually contribute toward the pharma’s ambitious goal of becoming the leading marketer of oncology therapies with more than $50 billion in annual sales from cancer treatments alone by 2030. That’s about as much as the value of J&J’s entire pharmaceuticals business this year.
J&J has more than 10 products on the market across 26 approved indications, as well as over 25 treatments in late-stage development, Duato said when he articulated the cancer sales goal in July during the company’s second quarter earnings call with analysts. He reiterated the cancer sales goal in September at the Morgan Stanley 23rd Annual Global Healthcare Conference, held in New York.
During the first three quarters of this year, J&J’s oncology sales added up to $18.519 billion—up 21% from $15.284 billion in Q1-Q3 2024. Those numbers include $6.529 billion in third quarter oncology sales this year, up 21% from $5.38 billion a year ago.
J&J’s top selling cancer drug—and top-selling drug overall—is Darzalex® (daratumumab), indicated for adults with multiple myeloma as monotherapy and in six different combinations with other drugs. Darzalex accounted for more than half (56% or $3.672 billion) of J&J’s Q3 oncology sales and more than half (56% or $10.448 billion) of the company’s cancer drug sales in the first nine months of 2025.
The company’s second-best selling cancer drug is prostate cancer treatment Erleada® (apalutamide), which racked up $2.615 billion in Q1-Q3 2025, up 18% year-over-year from $2.215 billion. Those figures include $936 million in third-quarter sales, up 18.4% from $790 million in Q3 2024.
Oncology is one of J&J’s six therapeutic areas of focus, along with immunology, neuroscience, pulmonary hypertension, communicable diseases, and cardiopulmonary disorders.
The Halda deal is J&J’s second billion-dollar acquisition this year. The first came when J&J acquired Intra-Cellular Therapies for $14.6 billion, in a deal for the neurological drug developer that was announced in January during this year’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference and closed in April.
The acquisition of Halda is expected to close within the next few months, subject to customary closing conditions that include antitrust clearance.
J&J expects its adjusted earnings per share (EPS) will be $0.15 lower in 2026 due to short-term financing and a non-recurring charge related to the equity awards for Halda employees upon closing. J&J said it will offer full year 2026 guidance to investors when it conducts its earnings call with analysts to discuss fourth quarter 2024 results on January 21, 2026.
“Through this transaction, we will continue to rapidly develop this promising program for patients with prostate cancer and advance Halda’s innovative pipeline from its RIPTAC™ platform to address a range of diseases,” added Christian S. Schade, Halda’s president and CEO. “This announcement is a tribute to the years of scientific effort to develop this novel, first-in-class modality and deliver significant value to our shareholders.”
