Benzinga Exclusive: Retrophin Shuns $100M Alexion Offer; Opts for 5.6M Share Offering

Retrophin

, a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and marketing therapies for rare and life threatening diseases, opted to file for a 5.6 million share PIPE offering at $4.50 per unit- a 10% discount to the share price at Wednesday's close. With a float of just over 12 million shares, the offering constitutes a significant portion of the outstanding stock, and is expected to raise approximately $15 to $20 million after fees and expenses, or roughly 20-30 percent of the company's current $70 million market cap. Making the story more interesting, a source close to the transaction that wishes to remain anonymous has told Benzinga that the company recently received an offer of $10 per share - or slightly more than $100 million - from Alexion Pharmaceuticals

, but management turned down the offer in favor of closing the PIPE. This source further added that Alexion's interest in Retrophin was kindled by the especially strong pre-clinical data announced on March 11, 2013 concerning RE-024, an experimental treatment for Pantothenate Kinase Associated Neurodegeneration (PKAN), a rare and almost-always fatal disease.