Intercept to sell in $800M cash buyout after second NASH rejection sank hopes

In­ter­cept Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals plans to hand over its liv­er dis­ease drug Ocali­va and oth­er pipeline projects to Ital­ian phar­ma Al­fasig­ma in a $19 per-share cash deal af­ter grap­pling with re­peat FDA re­jec­tions for its NASH drug can­di­date.

The deal of­fer is an 82% pre­mi­um to In­ter­cept’s clos­ing price of $10.44 on Mon­day and is ex­pect­ed to close by year’s end, the com­pa­nies said Tues­day. The ac­qui­si­tion is worth about $750 mil­lion to $800 mil­lion, “which we view as fair for ICPT hold­ers,” Jef­feries an­a­lyst Michael Yee wrote in a note short­ly af­ter the deal’s dis­clo­sure.

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