Buy them and shut them down

This story first appeared in Adam’s Biotech Scorecard, a subscriber-only publication. STAT+ subscribers can join right here to get it delivered to their inbox.

Well being care investor Kevin Tang buys “zombie” biotechs to close them down. It’s a counterintuitive, however ingenious answer to the sector’s intractable downside lined in final week’s publication. Tang’s disposal service will not be a repair suited to all moribund biotechs valued at lower than their money, however it ought to — and hopefully will — be used extra regularly.

Presently, Tang, through his hedge fund Tang Capital Companions and his privately held shell firm, Concentra Biosciences, has a $3-per-share money provide on the desk to amass and shut down Acelyrin, the distressed, cash-rich biotech that’s looking for a second life as a merger companion with one other troubled biotech.