Neumora Therapeutics stock advanced as much as 16% in Wednesday morning’s trade after it was revealed that Amgen Inc (NASDAQ:AMGN) holds a material stake in the company.
Amgen was an investor in Neumora’s IPO last week, adding to an existing holding, to give it a 23.2% stake in the neuroscience drug discovery company, according to a filing.
Investing $30 million, Amgen bought 1.8 million new common shares which were priced in the IPO at $17. At the same time, its existing holding of preference shares bought in 2021 were converting into common shares.
Amgen is well in the money on its investments in Neumora, according to a MarketWatch report, which pointed out that Amgen spent some $140 million on the shareholding to date, and at Neumora’s closing price on Tuesday that holding would be worth just over $414 million.
In New York, Neumora stock has today traded between $11.85 and $13.28, and, was most recently up 83 cents or 7% changing hands at just over $12.50.
Neumora, in July, kicked off a Phase 3 trail of Navacaprant, a potential treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD).
Navacaprant is described as a ‘once-daily kappa opioid receptor antagonist’ which the company notes is a novel mechanism of action for the monotherapy treatment of MDD.
The drug, according to Neumora, promises to be a differentiated antidepressant that can help manage anhedonia – the side-effect of other depression treatments that typically described as ‘an inability to experience joy or pleasure” – whilst maintaining a favorable safety profile.
“These symptoms are among the most challenging to treat and cause significant negative impact on patients’ quality of life,” Neumora co-founder and chair Paul Berns said in a July statement.
“Patients deserve better treatment options for depression, and we are working with urgency to address the serious unmet medical need that remains in MDD.”
On the same day, 18 July, the company appointed as its new chief executive Henry Gosebruch who was previously chief strategy officer at AbbVie.
“Neumora is at the forefront of a new era in neuroscience and is tackling one of the greatest challenges of our generation, the global brain disease crisis, by redefining neuroscience drug development with novel therapeutic programs and a precision approach,” Gosebruch said in July.