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Corixa shareholder will oppose takeover Thursday June 16, 6:00 am ET By Tara Croft
A major Corixa Corp. shareholder said Wednesday, June 15, it planned to vote against GlaxoSmithKline plc's $300 million bid for the company. MPM BioEquities Adviser LLC, which owns 1.1 million shares of Corixa, said the British drugmaker's $4.40 per share offer for Corixa is about 32% too low. MPM values the company at about $6.50 per share in an acquisition and plans to vote its shares against the deal.
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"MPM has communicated to Corixa its belief that Corixa shareholders are not receiving a fair value from the proposed acquisition," MPM said in a statement. The vote on the acquisition is scheduled for July 12. MPM said it is seeking a meeting with Corixa's board to review its concerns.
Corixa spokesman Jim DeNike would not comment beyond the transaction's proxy statement but did say, "We intend to respond directly to the investor and address his issues." DeNike gave no timeframe for Corixa's response.
GlaxoSmithKline agreed in late April to purchase the Seattle-based biotechnology company. At the time, the offer represented a 48% premium to Corixa's closing share price of $2.98 on the day before the deal was announced. The company's stock is currently trading around $4.39.
Corixa, which was founded in 1994, went public in 1997. After making a series of acquisitions, Corixa returned to the private markets in August 2002, raising a $45 million PIPE from InterWest Partners, Frazier Healthcare Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures. The venture investors bought 7.3 million shares at $6.13 a share, a small discount to the firm's trading price on Nasdaq at the time.
GlaxoSmithKline and Corixa have worked together to develop drugs such as Corixa's Bexxar treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma. In December, GlaxoSmithKline bought the rights to making and marketing Bexxar.
Corixa is developing vaccine adjuvants, which are compounds that when combined with a vaccine, boost the body's immune response to antigens contained in the vaccine. Corixa's products are currently in clinical development programs, including several that have advanced to and through late-stage clinical trials.
On May 10, Corixa announced a first quarter sales increase. The company's revenue was $7.2 million for the three months ended March 31, compared to $6 million for the same period in 2004.
A representative from MPM did not return a call seeking comment.
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