Biopharmaceutical company AVEO Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AVEO) is among the trending tickers of the day on Yahoo Finance, increasing by 28.49% by 3:00 pm EST following rumors that AstraZeneca PLC (NYSE:AZN) will acquire the company in Q2 2019.
According to Seeking Alpha, representatives from various large investment banks believe AstraZeneca will soon make a move to acquire AVEO, which is nearing FDA approval for its Fotivda (tivozanib) kidney cancer medication. The price of the acquisition could be anywhere between $800 million to $1.2 billion USD.
The M&A speculation has caused the AVEO Pharmaceuticals stock price to skyrocket today, which is encouraging considering the stock plummeted 46% in January when the company announced it would not be filing an NDA in the US for Fotivda after the FDA told the company it was not satisfied with the preliminary overall survival data results from the Phase 3 TIVO-3 trial.
Looking at the recent share activity, it seems that investors believe the FDA will soon approve AVEO Pharmaceuticals’ Fotivda, despite being previously denied.
Class-Action Lawsuit Against AVEO
At the same time, AVEO Pharmaceuticals is facing a class-action lawsuit, with Levi & Korsinsky, LLP alleging that the company made “materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) the TIVO‑3 trial was inadequately designed to address the OS concerns regarding AVEO’s lead candidate drug, tivozanib.” Levi and Korsinsky believe that “this lack of sufficient survival data would put tivozanib at greater risk of delayed FDA approval.”
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Despite the allegations, the lawsuit doesn’t seem to be deterring investors.
AVEO Pharma Already Collaborating with AstraZeneca
The acquisition makes sense for AstraZeneca, which is already in a clinical collaboration with AVEO Pharmaceuticals to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Fotivda in combinations with AstraZeneca’s IMFINZI® (durvalumab), a human monoclonal antibody directed against programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1).
Fotivda (tivozanib) was recently included as a first-line treatment recommendation in the new European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) clinical practice guidelines for renal cell carcinoma (RCC), following approval of the drug within the European Union.
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