Harmony Biosciences Holdings Inc.’s agreement to acquire Zynerba Pharmaceuticals Inc. for $60 million cash plus as much as $140 million in contingent value rights (CVRs) didn’t register as one of the larger potential outlays recently, but Wall Street had questions about the term sheet just the same. Plymouth Meeting, Pa.-based Harmony is paying about $1.10 per share in cash for Zynerba, of Devon, Pa., plus one non-tradeable CVR tied to clinical, regulatory and sales milestones.
Two complete response letters for group members dispatched this month by the FDA was enough to contribute to a flat performance in October for the BioWorld Neurological Diseases index. Overall, the price-weighted index has remained underwater for most of the year with its value down about 5% during this period.
Zynerba Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s stock was slashed nearly in half June 30 as the company’s pivotal Connect-FX study for treating fragile X syndrome behavioral symptoms failed to achieve statistical significance in its primary and three key secondary endpoints.
Zynerba Pharmaceuticals Inc. in late May popped the lid off top-line data from the open-label phase II study called Bright with ZYN-002 in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder, and the findings drew adjectives from Wall Street such as “provocative” and “encouraging.”
After dropping to its lowest valuation at the end of September, the BioWorld Neurological Diseases index, a price-weighted index of public biopharmaceutical companies that are focused on developing therapies to treat neurological diseases, got on a roll and climbed 22% during the next two months. However, a surprising trial failure reported by Sage Therapeutics Inc. last week served to eat into those index gains.
