Ligand Pharma Spin-off Notes

May 26, 2022 Update

OmniAb will be spun out through a SPAC under Avista Capital Partners

  • The SPAC will have $1.13b market cap
  • Currently Avista believes OmniAb has an Enterprise Value of $835m
  • Avista partners has invested ~$8b in healthcare companies
  • OmniAb is most of its energy in the discovery/pipeline than in later stages
  • Overall scale of product development has increased 11x since 2016 for OmniAb
  • Revenue for OmniAb in Q1 2022 was $9.2m up from $8.9m in Q1 2021

November 12, 2021 Update

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. (LGND) this week announced that it is planning to split Ligand into two separate, publicly traded companies with one featuring the OmniAb business, and the other featuring Ligand’s existing collection of core royalties and the technologies, pipeline and contracts associated with the Pelican protein expression platform and the Captisol business.  From what management has said,  an IPO and eventual distribution of OmniAb shares to Ligand shareholders is the leading option on the table. In an IPO, Ligand expects OmniAb to issue less than 20% of its common stock, with Ligand retaining the remaining interest, which would eventually be distributed to Ligand stockholders as a tax-free transaction. Currently there is no given timeline for the transaction Their OmniAb business has seen significant progress this year, with the first regulatory approval for an OmniAb-derived antibody received during the Q3 and a second approval anticipated by year-end.