Re­gen­eron did­n't want to 'bid against it­self' in Check­mate deal as five glob­al phar­mas de­clined to coun­terof­fer

Check­mate Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals knew time was run­ning out to fund the fu­ture of its sole as­set. The cash re­serves at Art Krieg’s I/O biotech would run out as the clock struck 2023, and it didn’t help that Check­mate had strug­gled to at­tract in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestor in­ter­est in 2021 and again couldn’t eke out any sem­blance of ac­qui­si­tion ap­petite from five “glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies.”

That left Re­gen­eron, which be­gan show­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion in­ter­est as far back as De­cem­ber 2020, as the on­ly par­ty at the ta­ble. It was so lone­ly, in fact, that dur­ing the com­pa­ny’s back-and-forth through­out Feb­ru­ary and March 2022, Re­gen­eron told Check­mate it was un­will­ing to “bid against it­self.” Re­gen­eron said to sub­mit a coun­terof­fer, ac­cord­ing to Check­mate’s SEC fil­ing of the be­hind-the-scenes of the $250 mil­lion cash deal.

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