News wrap: Equi­l­li­um ax­es Metacrine merg­er; Two phar­mas pen ADC deals

Im­muno­bi­ol­o­gy biotech Equi­l­li­um an­nounced a “mu­tu­al ter­mi­na­tion” of an an­tic­i­pat­ed merg­er with Rich Hey­man-chaired Metacrine a lit­tle over three months af­ter the ini­tial an­nounce­ment of the all-stock agree­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to SEC fil­ings, nei­ther Equi­l­li­um nor Metacrine will pay a ter­mi­na­tion fee.

Equi­l­li­um CEO Bruce Steel said in a state­ment on Dec. 23 that Equi­l­li­um start­ed look­ing in­to ac­quir­ing Metacrine in ear­ly 2022 in an at­tempt to add cash run­way “in a very dif­fi­cult fi­nanc­ing mar­ket.” Back in Sep­tem­ber, the com­pa­nies an­nounced that a merg­er would add $33 mil­lion to Equi­l­li­um’s bal­ance sheet and ex­tend the run­way through 2024. But the com­pa­ny has since found a dif­fer­ent part­ner in Ono Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal.

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