NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) today announced that it has completed the previously announced planned acquisition of IFM Therapeutics.

The transaction includes full rights to IFM’s preclinical STING (stimulator of interferon genes) and NLRP3 agonist programs focused on enhancing the innate immune response for treating cancer. IFM’s STING agonist program includes a lead asset that accelerates the company’s efforts against this target, while the NLRP3 agonist program includes a potential first-in-class pipeline candidate. A newly formed entity will be established by the current shareholders of IFM - IFM Therapeutics LLC – and it will retain IFM’s current personnel and facilities, as well as its remaining research programs, which include an NLRP3 antagonist program focused on curbing immune responses that lead to inflammatory diseases and fibrosis.

About Bristol-Myers Squibb

Bristol-Myers Squibb is a global biopharmaceutical company whose mission is to discover, develop, and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases. For more information, please visit www.bms.com or follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bmsnews.

About IFM Therapeutics LLC

IFM Therapeutics LLC is a privately held biopharmaceutical company based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was founded by an international group of preeminent scientists and physicians who have spent decades understanding innate immunity and the role it plays in regulating the immune system. IFM’s team has discovered and developed small molecules that modulate novel targets in the innate immune system as next-generation therapies for cancer, autoimmunity, and inflammatory disorders. For more information, please visit www.ifmthera.com.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Forward-Looking Statement

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding the research, development, and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including factors that could delay, divert or change any of them, and could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from current expectations. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Among other risks, there can be no guarantee that the expected benefits of the acquisition will be realized. In addition, the compounds described in this release are subject to all the risks inherent in the drug development process, and there can be no assurance that the development of these compounds will be successful. Forward-looking statements in this press release should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect Bristol-Myers Squibb's business, particularly those identified in the cautionary factors discussion in Bristol-Myers Squibb's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and our Current Reports on Form 8-K. Bristol-Myers Squibb undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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