Roche acquires Poseida Therapeutics at a premium of more than 215%. Poseida, specialized in cell therapy for cancer treatment, was a position in the Aescap Genetics fund. The substantial premium underscores the value of innovative cell and gene therapy companies in our funds.
Today Roche announced the acquisition of Aescap Genetics’ portfolio company Poseida Therapeutics for $9 per share, a premium of 215% over yesterday’s closing share price of $2.86. Poseida shareholders also receive a CVR (contingent value rights) of $4, consisting of 3 payments of respectively $2, $ 1 and $1 upon the achievement of specific future milestones. The total acquisition price is $1.5 billion.
Aescap Genetics began building a position in Poseida Therapeutics in August. The position accounted for 1% of the Genetics fund portfolio prior to the take-over announcement. We intended to build the position to 4% of the fund pending the upcoming clinical trial data in December. This acquisition therefore came early in our build-up process.
Poseida signed a collaboration with Roche in 2022 on several of the medicine candidates it has in its pipeline. Therefore, Roche was able to see the clinical trial data from those products before others.
San Diego based Poseida Therapeutics is developing so called next-generation allogeneic CAR-T cancer treatments. While another form of CAR-T therapy is already on the market by companies such as J&J, Gilead and BMS, these treatments are associated with high costs, lengthy treatment processes, manufacturing limitations and serious side effects. The newer allogeneic CAR-Ts address these challenges and showing improvements in all areas.
Aescap also has other allogenic CAR-T companies in its portfolio of 22 companies.
