Wall Street Analyst Says Radius-Shire Deal Is Unlikely

• Shares of Radius Health Inc RDUS spiked 20.72 percent on massive volume (3.8 million shares, versus the 1.1 million average) on Thursday trading.
• The surge seems to have been triggered by rumors about a possible takeover by Shire PLC (ADR) SHPG.
• Shares of Shire rose 2.77 percent during the regular trading session, but fell almost 2 percent in after-hours Thursday.

Radius Health’s stock spiked on Thursday following rumors that say Shire PLC intends to make a takeover offer of $90 per share for the company. It should be noted that this is a huge premium to Radius’ stock’s current valuation – the shares opened at $54.15 on Thursday.

So far, both Radius and Shire have denied to comment on the issue.

To shed some light on the subject, Benzinga contacted research firm Cowen. A prominent analyst at the firm assured:

1)   The Shire-Radius rumor seems quite unlikely. Shire has been subject of plenty of speculation regarding its M&A activity recently.

2)   Radius Health’s President and CEO visited Cowen’s office on Thursday afternoon and did not say anything about the potential acquisition.

Related Link: Radius Health Announces Positive Phase 3 Data from ACTIVExtend Trial at ASBMR

In other news, Radius announced, earlier this week, “positive top-line data from the first six months of the ACTIVExtend trial that showed women who were previously treated with 18 months of abaloparatide (ABL) subcutaneous (SC) injection experienced no new vertebral fractures and an increased bone mineral density (BMD) during the first six months of treatment on alendronate (ALN)” (Press Release).

The results basically “show that treatment with investigational drug abaloparatide-SC followed by alendronate provides important clinical benefit with reductions in new vertebral, non-vertebral and clinical osteoporotic fractures.”

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.