Pain startup lands $43M round, option to sell for up to $228M

In a flurry of deals, California startup Incline Therapeutics has landed a $43 million Series A to back the development of a pain med delivery system and landed a $3.5 million upfront for an option to sell the company to Cadence Pharmaceuticals. Cadence gets the right to buy Incline for $135 million during the first option period, with the price rising to $228 million in the second option period--plus a $57 million bonus if the FDA approves its pain delivery technology. Incline is...

Elan studies plans to spin off $1B drug tech unit

After scuttling plans to auction off its drug delivery tech unit two years ago, executives at Elan say they may now spin it off into a separate company. A spin-off would create two public companies and provide the drug development side of Elan extra funds to pay down debt. Ian Hunter, an analyst at Goodbody Stockbrokers, valued the drug technology arm at about $950 million--just shy of Elan's $1 billion estimate. The drug development arm would be renamed Elan BioNeurology, the company...