Pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca divested its stake in US-listed RNA therapeutics and vaccine developer Moderna for an amount likely to be above $1bn, Reuters reported yesterday, citing the former’s annual report.
Moderna specialises in drugs and vaccines that inject messenger RNA into human cells to spur production of certain proteins. In the past year its share price has soared approximately sixfold, mainly due to it being one of the first to successfully produce a vaccine for covid-19.
The company had floated in a $604m initial public offering in 2018 following nearly $1.75bn in funding. AstraZeneca then held a 7.8% stake worth approximately $587m.
AstraZeneca said in the report it had sold its entire stake for an amount that made up “a large proportion” of the $1.38bn it generated from sales of its equity portfolio over the past year, though it did not reveal whether it had already sold part of its stake in Moderna in the period since its IPO.
The corporate had formed a partnership agreement with Moderna in 2013 focusing on therapeutics that involved a $240m upfront payment. It then contributed $140m to a $474m round that closed in 2016, the largest ever raised by a privately held drug developer at that point.
