Avidex, Medigene deal
Cancer company MDG agreed to acquire cancer and autoimmune company Avidex in a stock deal. MDG will issue Avidex stockholders about 8.2 million shares, which values the Oxford University spinout at E51.6 million ($65.8 million) using MDG's Aug. 30 closing price of E6.29, the last trading day before the deal was announced. The deal gives Avidex shareholders a 28% stake in MDG. Avidex will remain in Oxford and become an MDG subsidiary.
The deal, which is expected to close in mid-October, gives MDG its first clinical autoimmune candidate - RhuDex, a small molecule CD80 inhibitor that is expected to begin a Phase IIa trial to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA) by year end. MDG also gets Avidex's monoclonal T cell receptor (mTCR) platform and six preclinical compounds to treat cancer and diabetes. ...