This is all a far cry from MyoKardia’s flotation on the Nasdaq stock exchange five years ago this month when its shares closed the day at $10.53 each (up from an initial public offering price of $10) giving a market capitalisation of $276.4m.
Back then, France-based drugs group Sanofi was MyoKardia’s preferred strategic partner and had acquired further shares in its IPO on top of $10m in equity funding as part of a collaboration deal signed in September 2014. Over the next four years MyoKardia received around $230m in funding from Sanofi.
Sanofi, however, terminated its agreement with MyoKardia to jointly develop small-molecule therapeutics, targeting genetic mutations associated with certain heart diseases, in April 2019, allowing MyoKardia to regain full rights to its drug programmes, including the experimental drugs mavacamten and MYK-491.
MyoKardia’s focus through the mavacamten drug – potentially coming to market from next year – is heart disease caused by the thickening of one of its muscles.
It could be imagined a few hearts in France started fluttering at BMS’s news but it is a great win for Fidelity as MyoKardia’s largest shareholder and which bought in before the IPO.
