Big Pharma’s Buying Spree: Why Startups Like CrossBridge Bio Are Selling Earlier Than Ever

Like most biotech acquisitions, the CrossBridge Bio purchase entered the news cycle on a Tuesday with a press release, a stock tick, and a few analyst notes. Eli Lilly consented to spend up to $300 million for a Houston-based business that hasn’t even administered its primary medication to any human.

Just that one element reveals something about the current state of the pharmaceutical industry. Businesses don’t wait for evidence. The opportunity to possess it in the future is what they are paying for.

CrossBridge is only two years old. Its founders set up shop inside the Helix Park Collaborative Building near the Texas Medical Center, licensed the underlying chemistry from UTHealth Houston, and began working on what the field had been pursuing for ten years: an improved antibody-drug conjugate. In oncology, ADCs have emerged as a quiet revolution. More than twenty of them are currently available on the market, treating malignancies of the breast, lung, bladder, and other organs. Many of them are displacing earlier treatment lines with chemotherapy regimens that date back decades. Before lunch at any large cancer conference, you’ll hear the acronym a hundred times.

However, what CrossBridge is creating goes beyond that. By using a unique linker known as EGCit, which prevents premature cleavage in the bloodstream, its platform distributes two hazardous payloads rather than just one. The idea is that existing ADCs use a single hammer to strike tumors, and the cancers learn to avoid it.

It is more difficult to avoid two hammers that are swung simultaneously by separate systems. The business claims that the preclinical results demonstrated true synergy—not merely two medications combined, but a true multiplier effect. It’s yet unclear whether it transfers to patients. At this point, it always is.

Michael Torres, the CEO, has been recounting this tale for some time. He was open about his journey on the Lab Rats to Unicorns podcast, including his upbringing in East Texas, living in section eight housing, receiving food stamps, earning a PhD in cancer biology, and co-founding ReCode Therapeutics. He desired to remain in Texas. Speaking with startups in Houston lately, it seems like they’re sick of hearing that all the best biotech takes place in Boston or the Bay Area. CrossBridge is the type of exit that makes the case for the Texas Medical Center, which has been discreetly constructing the infrastructure to argue differently.

Lilly finds the reasoning to be rather simple. Since acquiring Loxo in 2019, the company has been building a precision oncology business. In 2023, it acquired two further ADC startups, Emergence and Mablink. CrossBridge fits within that scheme. The timing is remarkable. Clinical testing for CBB-120 has not yet begun. Lilly is purchasing a platform, a staff, and a thesis rather than a medication. The new math is that. The previous strategy advised waiting for Phase 1 and maybe Phase 2 safety data before writing the cheque. The new one claims that someone else wrote it first and that you should wait too long.

It’s difficult to ignore how condensed these timelines have gotten. This kind of startup would have raised a Series B, then a C, and possibly gone public a few years ago. It sells now. Pharma purchasers, who are sitting on patent cliffs and pipeline gaps, seem to concur with investors that science is advancing more quickly than the finance markets can underwrite. The industry hasn’t really addressed whether that’s beneficial for patients in the long run, whether early acquisitions help medications reach the clinic more quickly or covertly bury the riskier ones. You get the impression that nobody is pausing to inquire as you see things play out.