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Zevra Rides To Rescue Of Cash-Strapped Acer

Deal Could Be Worth Around $90m

 
• By Kevin Grogan

Acer's bank reserves have dwindled down to next to nothing following the failure of its menopause drug, osanetant, in a Phase II trial some six months ago. Enter Zevra, which is getting hold of the company and its just-launched urea cycle disorder drug, Olpruva, in what looks like a bargain.

Zevra Therapeutics is to acquire struggling Acer Therapeutics Inc. to expands its rare disease activities and add a commercial product for urea cycle disorders (UCDs).

In a deal worth up to $91m, involving $15m of purchased stock and the rest in contingent value rights (CVRs), Zevra is getting hold of Acer's Olpruva (sodium phenylbutyrate), which was approved at the end of December last year by the US Food and Drug Administration for certain rare UCDs, specifically involving deficiencies of carbamylphosphate synthetase, ornithine transcarbamylase or argininosuccinic acid synthetase

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