Syncona Ltd (LON:SYNC), a leading healthcare company focused on founding, building and funding global leaders in life science, today noted the announcement from its company, Nightstar Therapeutics Plc (NASDAQ:NITE) (Nightstar), a clinical-stage gene therapy company developing treatments for rare inherited retinal diseases, that it has reached an agreement to be acquired by Biogen at a price of $25.50 per share.
The offer values Nightstar at $877 million and represents a 4.5x multiple on Syncona’s original investment of £56.4 million and an internal rate of return (IRR) of 72%. The sale of Nightstar will generate £254.6 million of proceeds for Syncona and is expected to complete in the second quarter.
Martin Murphy, Chief Executive of Syncona Limited, said: “In the six years since Syncona founded Nightstar, the company has established itself as one of the global leaders in retinal gene therapies. It is a strong example of our differentiated approach of founding, building and funding global leaders in life science and we look forward to seeing Nightstar work to deliver transformational treatments to patients during the next phase of its development with Biogen.
The offer for Nightstar will generate £254.6 million of proceeds for Syncona demonstrating our ability to generate superior returns for our shareholders. We will use the proceeds to continue to build and fund our portfolio companies and to pursue exciting new opportunities where we can build globally competitive companies around exceptional science.”
