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Intercept Pharmaceuticals, a firm whose treatment for a prevalent liver disease once made it the hottest stock in biotech, said Tuesday it would sell the company for less than $1 billion.
Alfasigma, an Italian pharmaceutical firm, will pay $19 a share for Intercept, in a roughly $800 million cash deal that represents an 80% premium to the company’s recent trading price. Intercept expects the deal to close by the end of the year.
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The transaction comes three months after the Food and Drug Administration rejected Intercept’s treatment for NASH, an increasingly common fatty liver disease perceived as a potential gold mine by drug companies. Intercept’s medicine, called obeticholic acid, would have been the first approved treatment for NASH, but serious concerns about the risk of drug-related liver damage and uncertainty over whether its modest effects would improve patients’ lives made it unapprovable in the eyes of the FDA.
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