Altimmune, which is developing intranasal vaccines against influenza and anthrax, is set to merge with vaccine developer PharmAthene, the companies have announced. Altimmune will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of PharmAthene subject to stockholder approval of the all-stock transaction, and the combined company will operate under the name Altimmune.
After years of litigation, Pharmathene recently received the final payment of a $217 million award related to a failed merger with SIGA.
PharmAthene President and CEO John M. Gill said, “A merger with Altimmune is an ideal strategic match. It fulfills our stated goal of continuing to build value for PharmAthene shareholders after we distribute the SIGA litigation proceeds on February 3. By combining forces, we will diversify our portfolio into attractive commercial product opportunities and leverage our capabilities for developing next generation anthrax vaccines.”
Altimmune President and CEO Bill Enright commented, “The merger allows Altimmune to leverage PharmAthene’s existing US public company infrastructure, providing access to the capital markets, which is essential to the continued development of immunotherapeutics clinical programs including NasoVAX, NasoShield and HepTCell that leverage Altimmune’s proprietary platform technologies.”
In August 2016, Altimmune announced that it had received a contract worth up to $120.2 million over five years from the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) for development of its NasoShield intranasal anthrax vaccine. The company says that it plans to initiate a Phase 1 trial of NasoShield by the end of the year.
The company’s NasoVax intranasal influenza vaccine is currently in Phase 2 development.
Read the Altimmune and PharmAthene press release.
