November 8, 2017
Willkie represented Melinta Therapeutics, Inc. and Vatera Healthcare Partners, Melinta’s majority shareholder, in its merger with Cempra, Inc. which forms a leading, vertically integrated commercial-stage anti-infectives company.
On November 3, Willkie client Melinta Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held commercial-stage company developing and commercializing novel antibiotics to treat serious bacterial infections, successfully completed its previously announced merger with Cempra, Inc., a publicly traded company. Read Willkie’s August 9, 2017 announcement.
Concurrently with the effectiveness of the merger, Cempra changed its name to Melinta Therapeutics, Inc., and the combined company commenced trading on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol “MLNT.”
Melinta’s flagship product is Baxdela, an antibiotic approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in the treatment of acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI). The merger lays a strong foundation for the launch of Baxdela. Melinta also has an extensive pipeline of preclinical and clinical stage products representing many important classes of antibiotics, each targeted at a different segment of the anti-infective market. Together, this pipeline provides Melinta with the unique ability to provide doctors and patients with a range of solutions that can meet the tremendous need for novel antibiotics treating serious infections.
Vatera Healthcare Partners is the dedicated healthcare venture capital and private equity investing arm of Vatera Holdings LLC. Vatera Healthcare Partners seeks to identify and develop best-in-class therapies to treat unmet medical needs and improve patients’ lives.
The multidisciplinary Willkie deal team was led by partners Gordon Caplan and Sean Ewen and included partners Michael Katz, Thomas Meloro, Christopher Peters and Jeffrey Goldfarb, and associates Jeffrey Daniel, David Blassberger, Richard Hevier, Andrew Marmer, Karolina Majewski, Rose Ohanesian, Rachel Dooley, Alexandra Awai and Yaniv Maman.
