EQRx had limited buyer interest, tried acquiring other companies before Revolution came for its cash

In No­vem­ber, EQRx pub­licly gave up on the fi­nal pieces of its low-cost med­i­cines ap­proach. But in a re­cent fi­nan­cial fil­ing, the com­pa­ny re­vealed that was the mo­ment when it al­so start­ed down the path of sell­ing it­self, a de­ci­sion that would ul­ti­mate­ly lead to it get­ting ac­quired for its cash months lat­er.

A day be­fore it an­nounced that it would ful­ly aban­don its goals as a drug price dis­rup­tor in fa­vor of “mar­ket-based pric­ing,” the com­pa­ny’s board told Gold­man Sachs to reach out to 24 bio­phar­ma com­pa­nies in the US, Eu­rope and Asia about po­ten­tial merg­ers, take-pri­vates, part­ner­ship deals or oth­er trans­ac­tions, ac­cord­ing to the se­cu­ri­ties fil­ing. Nine months lat­er, in Au­gust, EQRx said it would sell to Rev­o­lu­tion Med­i­cines in an all-stock trans­ac­tion. Share­hold­ers will vote on the pro­pos­al on Nov. 8.

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