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Sarepta Sells Arrowhead Stake to Fund Milestone Payment

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Key Takeaways

  • Sarepta sold Arrowhead stock to help pay a $100M milestone to the latter.
  • The payment was triggered by SRP-1003 hitting early enrollment and safety milestones in phase I/II.
  • Arrowhead will also buy back $50 million of its own stock to help fund the $100 million milestone payment.

Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT - Free Report) announced that it has sold at least $174 million worth of its equity investment in Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals  to help fund a milestone payment to the latter.

Shares of Sarepta rose around 9% on Wednesday in response to the announcement.

Year to date, the stock has plunged 83.2% compared with the industry’s 2% decline.

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SRPT’s Deal with Arrowhead

Sarepta closed an exclusive global licensing and collaboration agreement with Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals in February 2025. As part of this deal, the company acquired exclusive rights to Arrowhead’s four investigational RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics, each being evaluated in separate phase I/II studies. These are SRP-1001 in facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), SRP-1002 in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), SRP-1003 in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) and SRP-1004 in spinocerebellar ataxia 2 (SCA2).

The decision to sell its equity investment in Arrowhead was triggered by Sarepta’s $100 million milestone payment obligation to the former related to the phase I/II study of SRP-1003  for treating DM1. The phase I/II study met the first of the two predetermined enrollment targets, and a safety review allowed the study to move to higher doses. This milestone triggered a $100 million payment from Sarepta to Arrowhead. Initial data from the study is expected to be released in the second half of 2025. Early data from the FSHD program is also expected later this year.

Sarepta has already sold 9.26 million shares of common stock of Arrowhead in a private sale, from which it expects to receive at least $174 million in cash proceeds. Separately, Arrowhead will also buy back $50 million of its own stock from Sarepta to prefund half of the $100 million milestone payment that Sarepta owns.

SRPT Stock on Investors’ Radar

Sarepta has been facing a lot of heat from investors after three patient deaths were linked to its gene therapy treatments and attributed to acute liver failure. While two deaths occurred in patients after receiving Elevidys, one was caused by an experimental limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD) therapy. All deaths occurred in non-ambulatory patients and were linked to the AAVrh74 gene therapy vector, used in both Elevidys and Sarepta’s experimental LGMD therapies.

While the two Elevidys deaths had initially prompted Sarepta to suspend Elevidys dosing for non-ambulatory patients, the death of an ambulatory DMD patient in Brazil post-treatment with the therapy led to the product being withdrawn completely from the market.

However, the FDA cleared Elevidys for use in ambulatory patients last week after finding no link between the therapy and the Brazilian patient’s death. Last week, Sarepta announced that it had resumed delivery of Elevidys shipments.

To address the safety issue in non-ambulatory patients, Sarepta is working to create a new protocol with an enhanced immunosuppression regimen to make Elevidys administration safer for non-ambulatory DMD patients. The company also plans to submit these findings to the FDA in hopes of resuming dosing in the non-ambulatory patient population. The company relies heavily on Elevidys to drive top-line growth, with the therapy contributing over half of total revenues. The emerging safety concerns with the drug may hurt sales in future quarters.

Last month, Sarepta initiated a restructuring plan to save nearly $400 million annually starting in 2026. To achieve this target, the company has decided to lay off 36% of its workforce — around 500 employees — which is expected to save nearly $120 million per year. As part of this shift, Sarepta is now focusing on its siRNA pipeline acquired from Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals.

Sarepta developed Elevidys in partnership with pharma giant Roche (RHHBY - Free Report) . In 2019, the company and Roche entered into a licensing agreement to develop Elevidys. Per the agreement, Roche has exclusive rights to launch and market the therapy in non-U.S. markets.

SRPT Zacks Rank

Sarepta has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.


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