Wednesday, January 21, 2009

NitroMed considers Deerfield’s further revised buyout offer

By Mass High Tech staff

Lexington drug developer NitroMed Inc. once again rescheduled a special stockholder meeting planned for yesterday in order to reconsider a new, higher offer by Deerfield Management. The late offer, which is unsolicited, gave a buyout price of 80 cents per share, or about $36 million — an amount that Deerfield Management has inched up four times from its first offer of 50 cents per share in December.

While NitroMed (Nasdaq: NTMD) is reconsidering Deerfield’s latest offer, the company has stated there can be no assurances that it will reach an agreement of any sort. Deerfield Management owns 12 percent of NitroMed already.

To further complicate the deal, NitroMed announced in November that it planned to merge with Archemix Corp., a Cambridge biotech firm. And in October, the Lexington firm’s BiDil and BiDil XR drug business were bought by JHP Pharmaceuticals LLC. Both the Archmix and JHP Pharmaceuticals deals await NitroMed stockholder approval at this point.

NitroMed developed BiDil, a heart failure pill designed specifically for African-Americans. In January 2008, NitroMed laid off most of its staff and ceased marketing efforts for BiDil.