Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. pharmaceutical products
Photographer: Daniel Acker / Bloomberg
Photographer: Daniel Acker / Bloomberg
Investors in a business sweetener created when Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. acquired Celgene Corp. in 2019 and saw his all-or-nothing bet void because U.S. regulators didn’t approve a drug in time.
The right contingent value, or CVR, depended on a trio of drug candidates being released. On a statement on Friday morning, Bristol-Myers said the second key deadline – approval for cell therapy for smooth-cel lymphoma – expired on December 31 without a decision by the Food and Drug Administration. The final obstacle for CVR would have been approval by March 31 for another new therapy called ide-cel.
The $ 9 per share sweetener was traded at up to $ 4.76 each in April, before dropping to 49 cents in Thursday’s trading. There are almost 715 million CVRs in circulation, which would have translated into a total payment of $ 6.4 billion if all the terms had been met, show data compiled by Bloomberg. CVRs will no longer be traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
Bristol-Myers said it continues to work closely with the FDA to support the revision of the Biological License Application for lisa-cel and still wants to bring therapy to patients.
In a note on December 23, Mizuho analyst Salim Syed highlighted how rare it is for the FDA to approve drugs between the Christmas and New Year holidays. He estimated CVR’s litigation value at 30 cents at $ 1.40.
– With the help of James Ludden