Merck Scoops Harpoon in $680M Deal
Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: HARP) has agreed to be acquired by Merck (NYSE: MRK) in a cash deal valued at approximately $680 million. Harpoon’s share price rose 111% on Friday afternoon and surged a further 111% in Monday morning trading.
Under the terms of the agreement, Merck will acquire all outstanding shares of Harpoon at $23.00 per share. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2024.
Commenting on the deal, Julie Eastland, President and Chief Executive Officer at Harpoon Therapeutics, said that the company’s commitment has been to advance its cancer immunotherapy candidates to improve the lives of patients. She said that Merck’s recognized leadership in oncology clinical development and global commercial footprint, positions Harpoon’s our lead candidate, HPN328, strongly.
“The talented, passionate and dedicated Harpoon team has made great progress over the past eight years in leveraging our research platform to develop an innovative suite of candidates, and we are pleased that Merck has recognized the significant potential of our pipeline. I want to personally thank all of our key stakeholders, including our entire team at Harpoon, trial participants, physicians and our shareholders, who have supported us.”
Harpoon has developed a portfolio of novel T-cell engagers that employ the company’s proprietary Tri-specific T cell Activating Construct (TriTAC®) platform, an engineered protein technology designed to direct a patient’s own immune cells to kill tumor cells, and ProTriTAC™ platform, applying a prodrug concept to its TriTAC® platform to create a therapeutic T-cell engager that is designed to remain inactive until it reaches the tumor.
Harpoon’s lead candidate, HPN328, is currently being evaluated in clinical trials and has been granted Orphan Drug Designation by the FDA.
About Harpoon Therapeutics
Harpoon Therapeutics is a clinical-stage immunotherapy company developing a novel class of T-cell engagers designed to harness the power of the body’s immune system to treat patients suffering from cancer and other diseases. T-cell engagers are engineered proteins that direct a patient’s own T-cells to kill target cells that express specific proteins, or antigens, carried by the target cells. Using its proprietary Tri-specific T cell Activating Construct (TriTAC®) platform, Harpoon is developing a pipeline of novel TriTACs initially focused on the treatment of certain types of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. Harpoon has also developed a proprietary ProTriTAC™ platform, which applies a prodrug concept to its TriTAC platform to create a therapeutic T-cell engager that is designed to remain inactive until it reaches the tumor. Harpoon’s third proprietary technology platform, extended release TriTAC-XR, is designed to mitigate cytokine release syndrome. For additional information about Harpoon Therapeutics, please visit www.harpoontx.com.
