Vivek Ramaswamy's Arbutus kills another program over safety, stock takes another hit
Vivek Ramaswamy and Roivant’s $100 million bet on Arbutus and their hepatitis B pipeline have seen better days.
Ramaswamy made the bet in 2017, three months after he had secured $1.1 billion from Masayoshi Son’s Vision Fund for Roivant. The Canadian biotech’s stock had cratered after the Phase II failure of its Ebola vaccine, but Ramaswamy, already a stakeholder and the chairman of the board, saw potential in its RNA–based HBV technology and a lead drug already in Phase II. He invested $116 million with Arbutus and initiated a new partnership between it and Roivant. Roivant would provide infrastructure to help develop their tech.
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