Here's Why Stealth BioTherapeutics Rocketed Higher Today
Shares of Stealth BioTherapeutics (NASDAQ: MITO) are up 9.8% at 1:11 p.m. EDT, having been up as much as 35%, following the announcement that the biotech gave Alexion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALXN) an option to license elamipretide, Stealth's late-stage drug candidate for mitochondrial diseases.
Stealth BioTherapeutics will get $30 million from Alexion Pharmaceuticals, which includes an equity investment, option fee, and development funding. Alexion has the option to enact the license after seeing the results from an ongoing phase 3 clinical trial testing elamipretide in patients with a genetic mitochondrial disease called primary mitochondrial myopathy (PMM).
If Alexion chooses to license the drug, Stealth is eligible for an undisclosed option exercise fee, additional equity investment, development funding, and regulatory and commercial milestone payments. The companies will co-develop the drug for PMM, Barth syndrome, and Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy and share equal responsibilities for marketing the drug in the U.S. Outside the U.S., Alexion will take the lead.
Source Fool.com
