Sorrento Therapeutics, a California-based biopharma company, has turned down a takeover bid worth about $993 million from an undisclosed private equity fund, as per the latest pharma acquisition news.

Earlier this month, the US biopharma company was offered $7.00 per share for the acquisition of a majority stake or 100% in the former.

Sorrento Therapeutics said that its board of directors after reviewing the acquisition offer in consultation with its advisors concluded that the bid undervalues the company significantly. Furthermore, the proposal is also not in the best interest of its stockholders, said Sorrento Therapeutics.

The US biopharma company stated: “Sorrento’s management continues to execute on the core drug development and to pursue multiple potential strategic alliances and transactions.

“Accordingly, the Board unanimously rejected the acquisition proposal.”

Sorrento Therapeutics calls itself as a clinical stage, antibody-centric, biopharma company focused on developing new therapies to convert malignant cancers into manageable and potentially curable diseases.

The company’s main assets are fully human antibodies (G-MAB library), antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) and CAR-T and oncolytic virus (Seprehvir).

Sorrento Therapeutics is also working on advancing TRPV1 agonist RTX apart from manufacturing ZTlido. RTX is on the verge of wrapping up a phase IB trial in terminal cancer patients, while ZTlido (lidocaine topical system) 1.8% was approved by the US FDA in February 2018 for the relief of pain associated with post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN).

  California, Pharma acquisition news, Sorrento Therapeutics, US FDA