Avant Immunotherapeutics to merge w/ privately-held Celldex in $115M stock deal

NEW YORK (Thomson Financial) - Avant Immunotherapeutics Inc. Monday agreed to merge with privately-held Celldex Therapeutics in a stock deal worth roughly $115 million.

Following completion of the transaction, Avant shareholders will own 42% of the combined company and Celldex shareholders will own the remaining 58% on a fully diluted basis.

Avant, which plans to effect a reverse stock split as part of the deal in order to maintain its Nasdaq listing, expects the transaction to close in the first quarter of fiscal 2008.

The combined company is in the process of developing a number of products, including vaccines for cholera and Salmonella typhi, the cause of typhoid fever, as well as a brain cancer immunotherapy. It will also have a commercialized product, Rotarix, an oral vaccine developed in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline.

Shares of Needham, Mass.-based Avant closed Friday at 55 cents. Michael Baron mb COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News.