PharmAthene, Inc. recently entered into a definitive agreement to merge with Altimmune, Inc. in an all-stock transaction to create an immunotherapeutics company, which will target infectious diseases.
The merged company will be a fully-integrated and diversified immunotherapeutics company with four clinical stage and one preclinical stage programs.
The merger was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies and will be subject to approval of PharmAthene and Altimmune shareholders. If approved by shareholders, Altimmune will then become a wholly-owned subsidiary of PharmAthene and PharmAthene will subsequently issue shares of common stock to Altimmune shareholders. Altimmune equity holders will own 58.2 percent of the full-diluted equity of the combined company.
The merged company will operate as a public entity under the name Altimmune and will trade under the stock ticker symbol ALT.
“The merger allows Altimmune to leverage PharmAthene’s existing U.S. public company infrastructure, providing access to the capital markets, which is essential to the continued development of immunotherapeutics clinical programs including NasoVAX, NasoShield and HepTCell that leverage Altimmune’s proprietary platform technologies,” Bill Enright, president and chief executive officer of Altimmune, said.
Enright, along with Altimmune’s Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Elizabeth Czerepak, will serve in their same positions at the merged company. The new board of directors will also be initially made up of three PharmAthene directors and four Altimmune directors.
In total, the new company is expected to have approximately $20 million in cash and cash commitments.