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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowCan Eli Lilly and Co. close its planned $1.4 billion acquisition of Indianapolis-based Point Biopharma Global Inc.?
The Indianapolis drugmaker reported Friday morning that as of 5 p.m. Thursday, shareholders of Point have tendered only about 26.5% of the outstanding shares of the 4-year-old biotech, more than six weeks after the deal was announced.
That amount is less than is normally seen in tender offers for other publicly traded companies. Acquiring companies typically want commitments for at least 50% of a company’s shares before closing a deal.
For the second time in nine days, Lilly extended the period of its tender offer of Point’s shares, this time until 5 p.m. Dec. 1, the company said in its Securities and Exchange filing on Friday. The tender offer was set to expire this week.
A Lilly spokesman on Friday said the company had no further comment beyond its brief SEC filing.
The extension comes in the face of pushback from several investors, including Point’s largest institutional stock holder, Biotechnology Value Fund, or BVF, which holds about 16% of the stock. BVF has said that Lilly’s proposed offer of $12.50 a share in advance of an upcoming study by Point “is not in the best interest” of Point shareholders.
That’s even though the purchase price represents an 85% premium over Point’s closing price the day before the deal was announced Oct. 3.
BVF has said it wants Point shareholders to wait until the biotech releases the results of a clinical study on its lead compound, PNTR 2002, a radiopharmaceutical in development for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer after progression on hormonal treatment.
Point has a pipeline of clinical- and preclinical-stage compounds in development for the treatment of cancer using radiopharmaceutical isotopes that hold the promise of delivering targeted treatments to patients.
In addition, at least three other shareholders have filed suit in federal court to try to stop the deal, which they say included a “flawed and inadequate” sales process, conducted in the self-interest of the company.
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