Whitefort Capital sends letter to Arbutus Biopharma board of directors

Whitefort Capital Management, which is a long-term investor and the third largest shareholder of Arbutus (ABUS) Biopharma with an ownership interest of approximately 6.8% of the Company’s outstanding shares, published a letter to the Company’s Board of Directors outlining its views on the actions Arbutus must take in order to preserve and maximize shareholder value… “we expressed our view that, provided the data from the Company’s IM-PROVE I Phase 2a clinical trial remained confirmatory, the Company would be well positioned to pursue a license and collaboration agreement with a strategic partner and should explore all strategic options for its HBV portfolio at that time. Following the confirmatory results presented by the Company at AASLD – The Liver Meeting on November 18 , which reported that in Cohort A1 of the IM-PROVE I trial, 50% of patients who had baseline HBsAg levels less than 1000 IU/mL and 25% of patients overall achieved functional cure, we believe that time has now come.” …We continue to believe that Arbutus’ economic stake in the patent infringement claims against Moderna (MRNA) and Pfizer (PFE) BioNTech (BNTX) potentially represents significant value worth multiples of the Company’s current market capitalization. We await the upcoming Pfizer/BioNTech claim construction hearing on December 18, 2024 with great interest. The Company should publicly commit to preserving the value of its LNP patent estate by avoiding any further share dilution. Furthermore, as the Company evaluates internally and engages regulator feedback on the Phase 2b trial design, now is the time to engage with potential strategic partners. Indeed, at the recent Jefferies London Healthcare Conference, Mr. McElhaugh commented that with “functional cure rates to meaningful numbers, which we have now… there are plenty of (pharma) players out there who may become interested in the HBV space.”