BioCentury
ARTICLE | Finance

Ebb & Flow

November 2, 2009 8:00 AM UTC

Last week's low-money down acquisition of Metabasis Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:MBRX) by cancer and inflammation play Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: LGND) is the latest example of a structured acquisition with contingent payouts over time.

Ligand could get the infectious disease and metabolic company essentially for free, since the $3.2 million cash payment up front would be largely offset by its share of an undisclosed cash milestone upcoming from Roche (SIX:ROG; OTCQX:RHHBY) under a 2008 deal to apply Metabasis' HepDirect liver-targeting technology to the pharma's nucleosides to treat HCV...