Arcturus Therapeutics (Nasdaq: ARCT) acquired an exclusive, worldwide license from Alexion Pharmaceuticals to specific patent-pending mRNA manufacturing inventions related to nucleic acid purification technologies, the company announced on Feb. 22.
Based on the terms of the licensing agreement and in exchange for the license, Arcturus issued 74,713 shares of its common stock to Alexion on Feb. 19, with the number of shares based on a price of $66.92 per share, according to Arcturus’ Form 8-K filing. The filing also stated that “the price was determined based on the volume weighted average closing price of [Arcturus’] common stock on The NASDAQ Global Market for the thirty trading days ending on February 17, 2021.”
This deal extends the substantial intellectual property portfolio already held by Arcturus for the manufacture of high purity pharmaceutical quality mRNA therapeutic candidates for a variety of diseases. Since 2013, San Diego-based Arcturus Therapeutics has developed clinical-stage messenger RNA medicines aimed at infectious disease vaccines as well as liver and respiratory rare diseases.