Arrowhead out-licenses hepatitis B candidate in deal worth as much as $3.7 billion

4 October 2018

Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ARWR) saw its shares surge 19% to a high of $20.31 pre-market but plunge 15.7% to $16.04 by late morning New York trading, despite announcing a licensing deal that could earn it as much as $3.7 billion.

The company entered into a license and collaboration agreement with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a part of healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), to develop and commercialize ARO-HBV, which has potential as chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) treatment.

In addition, Arrowhead entered into a research collaboration and option agreement with Janssen to potentially collaborate for up to three additional RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics against new targets to be selected by Janssen. The transactions have a combined potential value of over $3.7 billion for Arrowhead.

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