Oxford BioMedica's stock got a major boost today on news that U.S.-based GeneThera made a takeover bid for the company. However, Oxford quickly rejected the offer, saying that GeneThera was not a credible bidder. GeneThera has a market cap of just $230,000, while the UK's OxfordBioMedica has a market cap of £46.5 million. "The board of Oxford BioMedica, which has consulted with its advisors, JPMorgan Cazenove and Rothschild, remains of the view that this unsolicited approach is not credible and is not in the interests of its shareholders," the company said in a statement read today.
So why did GeneThera bid? According to the company's statement, GeneThera thinks it can revive the TroVax program, a vaccine for kidney cancer that was put on ice last month because it failed to show efficacy when compared to existing treatments. After a meeting with OxfordBioMedica, GeneThera felt it "might be in the position to address the issues related to the failure of the Trovax clinical trial, and possibly restart the clinical trial utilizing GeneThera's more powerful technology."
Oxford's stock remains high as investors anticipate additional offers. Back in February there were rumors that Sanofi was preparing a bid for the company.
- here's GeneThera's statement
- read this report for more
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