Roivant Sciences is a healthcare company focused on applying technology to drug development. Roivant builds subsidiary biotech and healthcare technology companies. Roivant was founded by Vivek Ramaswamy in 2014.
History
founded Roivant Sciences in 2014. Focused on aligning incentives and improving capital efficiency, Ramaswamy's initial strategy was to in-license drug candidates and create subsidiaries focused on distinct therapeutic areas. This strategy expanded to include developing earlier stage drug candidates and platform technologies. Roivant is a parent company to over a dozen subsidiaries ranging from Immunovant Sciences, a majority-owned public company focused on autoimmune diseases, to privately-held Dermavant Sciences, focused on medical dermatology. Roivant also develops healthcare technologies through subsidiaries such as Datavant, which helps healthcare institutions share and aggregate data, and Lokavant, which integrates clinical trial data sources to identify and mitigate risks in pharmaceutical development. As of 2019, Roivant had over 40 investigational drugs in development in 14 therapeutic areas across its family companies. In addition to Vivek Ramaswamy, the company's leadership includes: Mayukh Sukhatme, Matthew Gline, Eric Venker, Rakhi Kumar, and Ben Zimmer. As of 2017, Roivant was valued at $7 billion. At the end of 2019, Roivant formed a $3 billion partnership with Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma and transferred its ownership stake in five of its subsidiaries: Myovant Sciences, Urovant Sciences, Enzyvant Therapeutics, Altavant Sciences, and Spirovant Sciences, which now sit under Sumitovant Biopharma. The deal included the option for Sumitomo to acquire up to 6 additional subsidiaries. In April 2020, Roivant dosed the first patient in a clinical study evaluating gimsilumab in COVID-19 patients for the prevention and treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome. Additionally, in April, Datavant Sciences announced that its technology is being used to create a pro-bono COVID-19 research database to help public health and policy researchers combat the pandemic.
Subsidiaries
As of April 2020, the company's subsidiaries include:
Alyvant, focused on using technology to improve the commercialization of medicines.
Axovant, a gene therapy company focused on developing treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. In June 2018, the company licensed worldwide rights to AXO-Lenti-PD, an investigational gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease, from Oxford BioMedica. Axovant is also developing gene therapies for GM1 gangliosidosis and GM2 gangliosidosis, including Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff diseases.
Cytovant, which is focused on developing cellular therapeutics in Asia.
Datavant, created to break down silos between healthcare datasets and connect the world's health data.
Dermavant, focused on developing therapeutics in medical dermatology, with lead candidate tapinarof in development for the treatment of psoriasis and atopic dermatitis.
Genevant, created to work on RNA-based therapeutics.
Immunovant, launched in July 2018 to develop therapies for autoimmune diseases, with lead candidate IMVT-1401 being developed for the treatment of myasthenia gravis, Graves’ ophthalmopathy, and warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia.
Lokavant, which is focused on improving clinical trial monitoring.
Metavant, which focuses on cardiometabolic disease and has rights to LGD-6972, a glucagon receptor antagonist, and imeglimin.
Respivant, created to develop therapies for patients with respiratory diseases, with lead asset RVT-1602 in development for the treatment of IPF cough.
Sinovant, launched in 2018 to develop treatments for use in China.
The following subsidiaries were previously a part of Roivant, but were included as part of a strategic transaction with Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma which closed in December 2019:
Enzyvant Therapeutics, which is focused on developing therapies for rare diseases.
Myovant Sciences, founded in partnership with Takeda to develop medicines for women's health and prostate cancer.
Spirovant, which focused on developing gene therapies for cystic fibrosis.
Urovant, which is developing lead candidate vibegron, licensed from Merck.
In June 2018, Roivant laid off 67 employees and reassigned 130 to subsidiaries. In December 2019, Roivant transferred five of its subsidiaries for dollars — Myovant, Urovant, Enzyvant, Altavant and Spirovant, in addition to a greater than 10% share in itself — to Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma. In March 2020, Roivant announced it is developing gimsilumab, an anti-GM-CSF monoclonal antibody, to prevent and treat acute respiratory distress syndrome in patients with COVID-19. In April 2020, Roivant started giving US COVID-19 patients their experimental medicine, Gimsilumab.
