Consolidation continues to be led by the penny biotechs, and the trend of merging with privately held companies a la Microcide also continues:
>>DALLAS, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Biotechnology company Exegenics Inc. (NasdaqNM:EXEG - News) said on Friday it agreed to merge with privately held Innovative Drug Delivery Systems Inc., in a move to speed commercialization of drugs in development.
Under the terms of the deal, the companies will complete a stock swap in which one share of IDDS common stock will be exchanged for 3.132 shares of Exegenics common stock, which closed Thursday at 76 cents per share. Representatives from both companies were not immediately available to comment.
Upon the closing of the merger, Exegenics will issue about 48.4 million shares of common stock, and will issue up to 11.7 million additional shares of common stock upon the exercise of outstanding IDDS options and warrants, in exchange for all of IDDS' outstanding equity interests.
Mark Rogers, who is now chairman and chief executive of IDDS, will be named executive chairman of the combined company and Ronald Goode, currently Exegenics' president and CEO, will continue as president and CEO.
In May, Exegenics said its agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb was ending, stopping payments to Exegenics for a process to make cancer treatment paclitaxel, leading to an undisclosed number of job cuts.<<
Now INCY munching RIGL, for a wild example, might be a worthy next step. Actually, INCY might be able to afford someone with a later stage program if they're going to insist on developing drugs.
Cheers, Tuck |
