New Haven drug developer Achillion Pharmaceuticals Inc., expecting clinical data on three experimental hepatitis C therapies, is in “advanced discussions” with potential partners and acquirers, Bloomberg News quotes Chief Executive Officer Michael Kishbauch as saying.
If the results, due about year’s end, are positive, “we become a probable ‘transactable’ company,” Kishbauch told Bloomberg in an interview Thursday. “We’re prepared to be patient and pick the best deal.”
Licensing deals, asset sales or selling the entire company are all possibilities, Kishbauch said. Achillion doesn’t have any products on the market. The board’s preference would be for “simplicity,” he said, referring to a full sale.
“The nature of discussions suggests that’s most likely,” he said. The question is timing, as Achillion plans to have data on a combination of hepatitis C therapies by the middle of 2013. “Theoretically the value of the company is increasing” as those results approach, he said.
Achillion has a market value of about $370 million. The shares declined 1.9 percent to $5.30 at 10:15 a.m. New York time, and had gained 30 percent this year before today.
