Sector News

PDL Biopharma mulls a sale, pledges to dissolve by end of 2020

March 12, 2020
Life sciences

Back in December, PDL Biopharma decided to call it quits. The onetime antibody developer weighed options to “unlock the value of its portfolio,” and now, has arrived at a plan to completely liquidate the company and dissolve it by the end of the year. PDL’s board approved the plan in February.

The Nevada-based company first enlisted financial advisors to assess its strategy in September 2019 and resolved three months later to close up shop. It looked into various options, including selling the company, or parts of it, as well as a spinoff transaction or a merger.

Since then, PDL has worked to get cash to its shareholders via share repurchases, cash dividends and other methods. It is mulling the sale of the entire company, or of its holdings of Evofem Biosciences, as well as its portfolio of royalty assets and its Noden and Lensar subsidiaries. If selling the company “will not optimize stockholder returns,” PDL will file a certificate of dissolution in Delaware by the end of the year.

“Based on the strong progress made to date and through the leadership of our board of directors and the commitment of our employees, we now believe that we can either execute a whole Company sale or monetize our key assets and distribute a significant portion of the net proceeds to our stockholders by the end of 2020,” said PDL CEO Dominique Monnet in a statement on Wednesday.

PDL started out in 1986 as Protein Design Labs, a company focused on monoclonal antibodies. Its antibody humanization technology has been used in various medicines, including Genentech’s cancer drugs Avastin and Herceptin, giving PDL a royalty revenue stream. In 2008, the company decided to split up its royalty assets from its development programs, spinning the latter off into Facet Biotech with more than $400 million in funding.

In 2013, PDL invested $60 million in cataract surgery player Lensar and, four years later, absorbed it as a subsidiary. In 2016, it poured $75 million into Noden Pharma to get its hands on Tekturna, the hypertension drug Noden picked up from Novartis.

By Amirah Al Idrusn

Source: Fierce Biotech

comments closed

Related News

December 3, 2023

FDA names chief scientist Bumpus as Woodcock’s successor

Life sciences

The Food and Drug Administration’s top scientist Namandjé Bumpus will assume the role of principal deputy commissioner when longtime agency leader Janet Woodcock retires from that role in early 2024, according to an announcement Thursday.

December 3, 2023

AbbVie to buy cancer drug maker ImmunoGen for $10.1 Billion

Life sciences

US biopharma AbbVie has agreed to acquire ImmunoGen in a deal which values the company at about $10.1 billion and gives AbbVie access to flagship cancer therapy Elahere (mirvetuximab soravtansine-gynx), a first-in-class antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) approved for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (PROC), as well as a pipeline of promising next-generation ADCs.

December 3, 2023

EuroAPI appoints new Executive Committee members

Life sciences

EUROAPI today announced the appointment of David Seignolle as Chief Operating Officer, succeeding Eric Berger, and Marion Santin as Chief Legal, Compliance, and IP Officer, both joining the company’s Executive Committee. In his new role, David Seignolle will lead the transformation of the Industrial Operations organization.

How can we help you?

We're easy to reach