BridgeBio drops bid to reclaim Eidos after directors spurn 3 offers
A couple of months ago a newly public BridgeBio turned some heads by disclosing that it had made a bid for subsidiary Eidos Therapeutics in hopes of gobbling up the 34% stake that it doesn’t already own. Two offers later, the parties are calling it off.
Brian StephensonA special committee of independent directors at the smaller biotech led by RA Capital’s Rajeev Shah and ex-Portola CEO William Lis first rejected the parent company’s initial offer — which would swap 1.3 BridgeBio shares for each Eidos share — on September 12. In the latest announcement, BridgeBio revealed that it eventually raised the offer to 1.5 shares and made $110 million available for all-cash or mixed consideration options, but Eidos still wasn’t interested.
“I thank the Special Committee for its hard work and look forward to continuing our efforts around the Phase 3 trial for AG10 and the analysis of data from our Phase 2 Open Label Extension,” BridgeBio founder and CEO Neil Kumar said in a statement. “Eidos and AG10 are a significant part of who we are at BridgeBio, having been part of our plan since we founded the company. We remain incredibly excited about the program and its potential for patients with ATTR cardiomyopathy.”
Nothing changes with regards to BridgeBio’s 66% ownership in or support for Eidos, he added.
As with all the other subsidiaries under its umbrella, BridgeBio takes certain back office and operation tasks off Eidos’ back so that its team can stay laser-focused on moving its lead drug in the clinic. AG10 is a small molecule designed to stabilize transthyretin (TTR) amyloids in the blood, which can cause fatal cardiomyopathy.
From the start the Eidos story has been one of a small but mighty contender taking on a field of giants tackling TTR using different approaches, from Pfizer (small molecule) to Ionis (antisense) to Alnylam (RNAi).
It was never clear why BridgeBio wanted full control of Eidos. In his initial disclosure about the proposed merger, CFO Brian Stephenson insisted they had no interest in selling control of Eidos despite some speculation that BridgeBio was looking to spark a buyout.
“We continue to believe strongly in AG10, of which we retain approximately 66% ownership, but we feel that beyond our final offer there are superior ways for us to deploy capital, both in and outside of our pipeline, to generate benefits for patients and returns for our investors,” Stephenson noted today.
Eidos shares dipped 7.89% this morning. At $35.54, the price is now slightly lower than where it was when the deal was proposed.
