Progenics Pharmaceuticals has offered to acquire EXINI Diagnostics for approximately $7 million cash, the companies said today.

Headquartered in Lund, Sweden, EXINI is a provider of development software solutions for medical decision support based on advanced image analysis. The companies said their deal is intended to complement Progenics’ strategy of supporting its imaging and therapeutic agents with sophisticated software and other technologies that help physicians and patients visualize, understand, target and treat cancer.

Progenics cited EXINI’s experience in the successful development and commercialization of software products based on medical image analysis and machine learning. That experience, Progenics reasons, will provide it with in-house development capabilities that it can apply to its own pipeline—including its prostate cancer imaging agents 1404 and PyL.

The deal, Progenics added, will bring it new personnel with key medical and scientific expertise in medical imaging—and support future expansion of international commercial activities as its late-stage programs advance toward the market through EXINI’s expertise in working with European partners, clinicians, and researchers.

“EXINI's expertise in software design for imaging products will be invaluable as we develop our imaging toolkit for prostate cancer centered on our 1404 and PyL programs, and then more broadly as we seek to empower patients and the physicians with a suite of products designed to help guide treatment decisions,” Progenics CEO Mark Baker said in a statement.

Added EXINI managing director Magnus Aurell: “The combination of Progenics’s imaging agents and EXINI’s analysis software has the potential to create a portfolio of innovative products which can provide both a more accurate picture of a patient’s cancer and a standardized analysis of the extent and severity of disease.

“We look forward to working with the team at Progenics to further expand the applications of our technology in prostate cancer and other indications,” Aurell stated.

Headquartered in Tarrytown, NY, Progenics has built an oncology drug pipeline that includes several product candidates in later-stage clinical development. The company’s first-in-class PSMA-targeted technology platform for prostate cancer includes 1404, a small molecule imaging agent that has completed a Phase II trial, and PSMA ADC, an antibody drug conjugate therapeutic which has also completed a two-cohort Phase II clinical trial.

The Progenics pipeline of targeted radiotherapy and molecular imaging compounds includes AZEDRA™, an ultra-orphan radiotherapy candidate for malignant pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma that is now in a Phase II study under a special protocol assessment.

Progenics has has exclusively licensed development and commercialization rights for its first commercial product, RELISTOR® (methylnaltrexone bromide) for opioid-induced constipation, to Valeant Pharmaceuticals International.

Progenics has offered approximately $7 million—a share price of about approximately SEK 3.15 (39 cents)—for all of EXINI’s equity, to be funded from cash on hand. That represents an approximately 93% premium over EXINIs closing price of SEK 1.63 (20 cents) per share on NASDAQ First North Stockholm on Monday, the last trading day before announcement of the Offer—and just more than double (101%) the volume-weighted average share price of SEK 1.57 (19 cents) per EXINI share during the last 30 days prior to the announcement.

The acquisition has been approved by the board of directors of Progenics, and unanimously recommended by the board of directors of EXINI, which said in its own statement: “A merger with Progenics is expected to offer EXINI the long-term commitment needed to establish a company in its chosen field of activity.”

“Meanwhile it is expected that EXINI can contribute with a key component to Progenics’ product portfolio in its efforts to fight prostate cancer,” the Board added.

The estate of Bo Håkansson, the largest shareholder, which holds approximately 30.74% of the total shares and voting rights in EXINI, has agreed to accept the offer, subject to certain conditions, Progenics and EXINI said.

The settlement of the offer is expected to occur in mid-November, the companies added, subject to certain closing conditions that include acceptance by more than 90% of the total number of shares of EXINI, and other customary conditions.

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