Great Point Partners rebukes BioCryst’s BCRX’s merger with Idera Pharmaceuticals

Great Point Partners, LLC submitted a letter to the Board of Directors of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals strongly rebuking BCRX’s merger with Idera Pharmaceuticals.

The letter states “We are Great Point Partners, LLC (“GPP”), an investment manager beneficially owning 7,478,275 shares of common stock of BCRX. We write to advise you that we are strongly opposed to the proposed merger of BCRX with Idera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“IDRA”) and intend to vote our shares against any proposal to authorize or consummate such merger Based on our experience investing in pharmaceutical and biotechnology research and development (“R&D”) companies, we believe BCRX shares are undervalued and represent a low-risk and high reward investment in the spectrum of such companies. It is our view that the merger is significantly unbalanced and represents a substantial transfer of highly valuable BCRX assets to the shareholders of IDRA in exchange for more speculative IDRA assets of far more uncertain value. Since IDRA’s principal shareholder is also a significant shareholder of BCRX, but has invested substantially more in IDRA than in BCRX, it is our view that the merger enables such shareholder to substantially increase its interest in BCRX’s assets at a substantial discount from their true value, and to the ultimate detriment of the other BCRX shareholders.”

Mr. Vincent Milano, the CEO of IDRA said “So on the clinical synergy, I think the way we view this, Charles, is that we’re going to put the two companies together and all the programs that we currently have are going to continue to operate as is. With regards to the operations team, the work in front of us as we get prepared for the closing, we’ll take a look at the processes, if you will, of both companies from a clinical operations standpoint, take the best of both and combine them.”