Bizarre takeover bid is dropped; Mer­ck KGaA in li­cens­ing pact with Do­main

• You knew things were go­ing to get weird when the ex-CEO of In­Vi­vo Ther­a­peu­tics $NVIV claimed to have of­fered $77 mil­lion to buy the com­pa­ny — rough­ly half of its mar­ket cap — with plans to re­name the com­pa­ny af­ter him­self. And the prin­ci­pals didn’t dis­ap­point. To­day, Pixar­Bio CEO Frank Reynolds says the com­pa­ny has with­drawn its of­fer to buy In­Vi­vo “for rea­sons re­lat­ed to man­age­ment cred­i­bil­i­ty and com­pe­tence, cor­po­rate gov­er­nance and IP con­trol.” It linked to a 4-page let­ter out­lin­ing a list of griev­ances against In­Vi­vo, which had ear­li­er sued him.

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