u/Complex-Jello-2031

Lilly filed a 66-page civil suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Miami alleging a six-year rebate fraud scheme tied to its diabetes drug Trulicity cost the company more than $200 million. The alleged setup: a Florida mail-order pharmacy called DrugPlace purchased large Trulicity volumes through authorized distributors, claimed the drugs were dispensed to members of the Church of God in Christ via an affiliated benefits organization called Community Health Initiative, then simultaneously resold the product on the secondary market while collecting fraudulent rebates from Lilly. The company says its own data analysis flagged the scheme in 2025 after detecting a statistically implausible pattern — uniform prescription quantities, 30-day supply periods, no refills, no claim reversals, and rebate submissions covering only Trulicity rather than the drug mix typical of a real patient population. DrugPlace justified the volume by claiming 2.5 million church members qualified for enrollment; Lilly cites Pew data putting total church membership at roughly 1.9 million. Several bishops and church-affiliated businessmen are named as defendants; the church itself is not. Lilly says other pharma manufacturers were defrauded in the same scheme. The company is seeking a TRO and preliminary injunction. DrugPlace has since shuttered its Nashville pharmacy and begun liquidating assets.

I work with and talk to a lot of newer investors every day and this constant “sky is falling” narrative is one of the worst things for long term wealth building.

Every cycle it is the same story.

“The crash is here.”
“It’s over.”
“Cash out before it gets worse.”

Meanwhile a lot of the people screaming doom online are quietly making money in the market themselves.

I have lived through the dot-com crash, 2008, Covid, rate panic, bank panic, inflation panic and more “this time is different” headlines than I can count.

Yet the market still went on to make new highs.

Time in the market beats timing the market more often than people want to admit.

The biggest mistake many investors make is letting fear talk them out of opportunities during the exact moments wealth is usually built.

NextEra Energy is buying Dominion Energy in an all-stock deal valued at ~$67 billion — 0.8138 NEE shares per D share plus a pro rata slice of a $360 million one-time cash payment at close.

Implied value per D share at Friday's NEE close: ~$76.18.

D up 14.5% pre-market. NEE absorbs the dilution.

The strategic read: this is an AI infrastructure trade dressed in utility clothing. Data centers need power. Lots of it. NEE just acquired the transmission and distribution spine running through Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina — ground zero for hyperscaler buildout.

Combined entity serves ~10 million customer accounts, runs a $138 billion regulated rate base growing at an 11% clip through 2032. World's largest regulated electric utility by market cap.

The regulatory gauntlet is real — FERC, NRC, three state commissions, two shareholder votes. Timeline is 12 to 18 months. NEE put up a $4.83 billion termination fee tied to regulatory failure. That's not a rounding error. They want this deal.

Watch NEE's open. The implied D value moves tick for tick with it until close.

CPRX M&A update looks much closer to a locked deal than an active bidding war.

Current reporting points to Angelini Pharma as the buyer at roughly $31.50 per share. The stock has been trading very close to that level, which usually signals the market is pricing in a high probability of deal completion rather than expecting competitive tension.

At this point, there is no verified evidence of a second formal bidder or a competing offer. No auction dynamics, topping bids, or strategic rival entries have surfaced in credible reporting.

That matters.

In true M&A auctions, you typically see price drift above deal value or clear signals of competing interest. CPRX is not showing that behavior right now.

The base case remains: Angelini deal proceeds under current terms.

A higher bid is still possible in theory given CPRX’s rare disease commercial footprint and cash flow profile, but the current tape does not reflect an active bidding process.

For now, this reads as a standard strategic acquisition in the late stages of execution rather than an open competitive sale process.

Even my long hold income plays get sold
NextEra Energy is buying Dominion Energy in an all-stock deal valued at ~$67 billion — 0.8138 NEE shares per D share plus a pro rata slice of a $360 million one-time cash payment at close.

Implied value per D share at Friday's NEE close: ~$76.18.

D up 14.5% pre-market. NEE absorbs the dilution.

The strategic read: this is an AI infrastructure trade dressed in utility clothing. Data centers need power. Lots of it. NEE just acquired the transmission and distribution spine running through Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina — ground zero for hyperscaler buildout.

Combined entity serves ~10 million customer accounts, runs a $138 billion regulated rate base growing at an 11% clip through 2032. World's largest regulated electric utility by market cap.

The regulatory gauntlet is real — FERC, NRC, three state commissions, two shareholder votes. Timeline is 12 to 18 months. NEE put up a $4.83 billion termination fee tied to regulatory failure. That's not a rounding error. They want this deal.

Watch NEE's open. The implied D value moves tick for tick with it until close.

Every superpower goes in confident. Every superpower gets crushed.

Pfizer walked away entirely in 2018. Merck buried billions on BACE inhibitors. Roche failed crenezumab and gantenerumab back to back. Lilly took 27 years to get donanemab approved and the launch is still a slog. Biogen burned through Aduhelm, is grinding through Leqembi, and just posted tau data with no dose response.

Decades of money. Tens of billions spent. Plaques cleared. Dementia barely budged.

And we keep sending in fresh troops.

But whoever finally cracks this nut owns the largest unmet need in medicine. 55 million patients globally. 10 million new cases every year. A trillion dollar market that grows with every aging population on earth.

The graveyard is brutal. The prize is generational.

VTVT, $37.60, +18.74% today. Phase 3 CATT1 readout in T1D 4 months out, Breakthrough Therapy designation in hand, $98M cash funds operations past topline, first-in-class oral glucokinase activator with no approved oral competitors in the adjunctive T1D space, classic M&A Hunter binary setup with clean buyer profile (LLY, NVO, SNY).

Reviva Pharmaceuticals leaves the Nasdaq this week. Trading suspends at the open Thursday May 14, 2026. The stock moves to the OTCQB under the same symbol, RVPH.

This one stings a little.

RVPH is the OG. The stock that brought us all together. Before the Substack, before the watchlist, before the framework, there was RVPH and a group of us trying to figure out what real biotech M&A hunting looked like. The unmet need was real. The brilaroxazine schizophrenia thesis had real shape. The cap structure was tight. The biotech M&A engine was supposed to come for names exactly like this one.

It didn't come.

The stock did what too many small cap clinical names do when the data window passes and the cash window closes. Down 95% in a year. Sub one dollar. Compliance failure. OTC migration on May 14.

Some of us sharpened our trim skills here. Some of us learned the harder way, after, that trims are not optional. They are the job.

That is the lesson RVPH leaves behind. M&A Score alone gets you killed when the runway runs out before the catalyst lands. Growth Score alone gets you killed when the commercial trajectory stays theoretical. You need both, and you need the discipline to ring the register on the way up so you are not begging the tape on the way down.

RVPH had the asset. What it did not have was the runway buffer and the catalyst density to survive a sector winter. The framework I run now, the dual scoring, the rung-based analysis, the calibration fix on cell therapy and consolidation verticals, the cash runway gates, the Miami tiers, all of it carries a little bit of RVPH in its bones. This community carries a little bit of RVPH in its bones.

The sub-dollar biotech graveyard is filling up fast. SGMO already. AREB this week. PRPL the same day as RVPH. The tape is thinning.

So goodbye old friend. You did not make me money. You made me sharper. You brought us together.

That is worth something. The work continues.

NSTS Bancorp just got taken out. Brookfield Bancshares is paying $73.7 million all-cash, $14.28 per share, closes Q4 2026.

This is the second banking deal on coverage. LNKB to Burke & Herbert closed May 1 at $354.2 million all-stock, $11.0 billion pro forma assets across six states. Now NSTS to Brookfield at $73.7 million all-cash. Two bank takeouts in 11 trading days.

NSTS is the cleanest version of the thesis. Three-branch community thrift in Waukegan, Illinois. Demutualized January 2022, Tier 1 capital ratio 23.11 percent, sitting on excess capital, never scaled. Gets absorbed by a slightly larger local operator in the same MSA. All-cash, no antitrust risk, clean six month close.

The mechanic is repeatable. Overcapitalized demutualization thrifts that cannot organically scale get rolled up by neighbors at premium cash takeouts. This template works across the entire small thrift universe.

The 2026 Takeout Scorecard, 12 Deals, $42.0B

CNTA to Lilly, $7.8 billion. OX2R agonist platform for narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia.

OGN to Sun Pharma, $6.8 billion. Women's health and biosimilars commercial portfolio, India-based acquirer.

TERN to Merck, $6.7 billion. Oral allosteric BCR::ABL1 TKI for CML.

APLS to Biogen, $5.6 billion upfront plus CVR. Complement platform with SYFOVRE in geographic atrophy and EMPAVELI in PNH and C3G. 140 percent premium.

CPRX to Angelini Pharma, $4.1 billion. Rare disease commercial portfolio.

SLNO to Neurocrine, $2.9 billion. VYKAT XR for Prader-Willi syndrome.

DAWN to Servier, $2.5 billion. Pediatric low grade glioma with Ojemda, French acquirer.

RAPT to GSK, $2.2 billion. Anti-IgE mAb ozureprubart for food allergy.

KALV to Chiesi, $1.9 billion. EKTERLY sebetralstat, first oral on-demand HAE therapy, Italian acquirer.

ESPR to ARCHIMED, $1.1 billion. NEXLETOL cardiovascular franchise.

LNKB to Burke & Herbert, $354.2 million. All-stock, closed May 1.

NSTS to Brookfield Bancshares, $73.7 million. All-cash, announced today.

Every one of these names was on the radar before the deal hit. The mechanic for finding the next one is the same.

The FDA dropped a Request for Information today titled "FDA Advances Drug Repurposing to Address Unmet Medical Needs." The agency is soliciting public input on how to identify and develop new indications, new patient populations, or new dosing approaches for already approved drugs. Comment period is open now via the Federal Register.

This is not a drug approval. It is not a new pathway yet. It is the opening move. But the opening move tells you where the agency is steering.

Why This Matters

Repurposing leverages existing safety, manufacturing, and clinical data on approved molecules. That means faster, cheaper, lower risk development for new indications. The FDA is calling out three focus areas: chronic diseases, rare diseases, and unmet medical needs.

If the agency follows the RFI with a formal expedited pathway for repurposed assets, something 505(b)(2) shaped but more aggressive, the math on small cap biotech changes meaningfully.

Three Buckets It Pulls Forward

AI drug discovery platforms get a tailwind. The RFI specifically asks about artificial intelligence as a data source for identifying repurposing candidates. ABSI, RXRX, and SDGR have been beat up but the policy backdrop just got more constructive. AI screening is exactly what you want when you are mining approved molecules for second and third indications.

Rare disease names with pipeline optionality benefit. HRMY, CPRX, and ZVRA all have lead assets that started as repurposing plays or carry repurposing optionality. A faster regulatory path for new indications de risks every line of their pipeline expansion.

Big pharma acquirer behavior shifts. If FDA actively encourages new indications on approved molecules, the tuck in acquisition math gets better. You can credibly add a second or third indication to a target asset without committing to a full Phase 3 program from scratch. That makes small cap biotech with under developed assets more attractive to acquirers like JNJ, LLY, MRK, and PFE.

What I Am Watching

The RFI itself does not move stocks. The substantive thing is the follow through. Three signals would tell you the agency is serious.

One. Formal pathway guidance. A documented expedited review program for repurposed assets, something cleaner than the current 505(b)(2) workaround.

Two. User fee reductions or waivers for sponsors pursuing new indications on approved drugs. That signals the agency is willing to subsidize the work.

Three. Named priority disease areas. If FDA publishes a list of indications where they want to see repurposing proposals, every small cap biotech with a molecule that fits one of those buckets gets re rated overnight.

The Read

Policy tailwinds rarely show up in the price the day they are announced. The market needs to see follow through. But this is the kind of setup where you want to be early on AI drug discovery names that have been written off, and on rare disease platforms with breadth across their pipelines.

The repurposing thesis is real. The agency just made it slightly more real.

Word is Marty Makary is getting the ax. Politico's Rachel Bade dropped the scoop May 6, two well-placed sources expressed confidence Makary is on borrowed time. Bloomberg ran the "paranoia, turmoil and backlash" deep dive a day earlier.

The political driver is flavored vapes. Trump wants them approved, Makary blocked the agenda, White House insiders now call him a thorn.

The biotech driver is messier. Sanofi just yanked Tzield from the Commissioner's National Priority Review program after a high-level disagreement. That is a public humiliation of Makary's flagship program. Replimune's RP1 melanoma rejection lit up the industry over single-arm trial pushback.

Vinay Prasad already exited CBER end of April. Atara's Ebvallo got a positive Type A meeting one week later, FDA agreed a single-arm study with appropriate historical control could support approval. The reversals are already starting.

What it means for the M&A Hunter universe

Randomized trial designs get a relative bid. Single-arm submissions face structural headwinds. Companies that built proper Phase 3 randomized programs are insulated. The OnPrime/GOG-3076 type structure becomes the gold standard.

Cell therapy and gene therapy get a tailwind. The Atara reversal is the template. Post-Prasad, the agency is already walking back some of the most aggressive denials. If Makary follows him out, more reversals likely.

Q3-Q4 PDUFA dates carry transition risk. Leadership change in the middle of a review window can cut either way. Industry-friendlier commissioner, neutral to positive. More restrictive RFK Jr. pick, short-term overhang. PDUFA dates in August through November are the ones to watch.

The bigger pattern

Makary came in promising speed. Industry got blindsided by setbacks. Internal staff describe culture clashes. The agency that approves your drug needs to be predictable. Right now it is anything but.

Watching this closely.

DO NOT CHASE THE NEWS Trim crazy pops

I keep getting called a shorter and a hater in my DMs. I am not. I do not own IBRX long or short. Nobody pays me I do biotech M&A for a living. I do the homework and flag traps before retail walks in. Yell at me if you want.

ANKTIVA is real. The drug works. I am not fighting the drug. I am fighting the guy at the top.

Public record on Dr Pat:

FDA warning letter March 24 2026, sent to him personally over claims on the Sean Spicer show that ANKTIVA could treat all cancers. Stock dropped 21 percent that day. The FDA does not send those letters to billionaires for fun.

STAT News January 2026, older one but part of the pattern. FDA refused his application to broaden ANKTIVA. STAT reported he misrepresented what happened in his FDA meeting when he went public attacking the agency.

Delaware Chancery November 2024. Shareholder filed a 700 million windfall complaint over related party transactions right before ANKTIVA approval. Dismissed on procedure, not merits. Financing facts still on the docket.

May 2026 securities class actions. Four plaintiff firms running active cases naming him personally. Levi and Korsinsky, Hagens Berman, Glancy Prongay, Wolke and Rotter.

2023 Complete Response Letter on ANKTIVA over manufacturing problems the company hid for two years. Same drug, same playbook.

Now the cap structure. Read slow.

Total liabilities 1.5 billion. Total assets 646 million. Stockholders deficit negative 870 million. Inside sits a 678 million convertible note owed to entities Dr Pat controls personally. The chairman is the biggest creditor of his own company. He is also the biggest shareholder. Next to that note is a 404 million revenue interest liability. ANKTIVA revenue is already pledged before it hits the books.

Any sale, any restructure, any license, he gets paid first as creditor and again as shareholder. Common holders eat last.

Here is the part most retail does not know.

IBRX is his fourth public bio. Track record:

Abraxis Bioscience. Stock walked down. Retail panicked out insiders bought. He sold to Celgene at a fat premium.

APP Pharmaceuticals. Same playbook. Stock washed out, retail sold insiders bought, he closed a sale to Fresenius Kabi.

NantHealth. This one did not get a clean exit. Went public June 2016 at 14 dollars. STAT broke a story in March 2017 that his foundations donated 12 million to University of Utah, and the contract required the school to funnel 10 million right back to NantHealth for sequencing work. Indirect self-dealing through a charitable shell. Stock dropped 23 percent on the STAT report and 35 percent within days. Settled a 16.5 million federal class action. Settled a separate Delaware case where he paid 400 thousand to the company himself, over claims he used charitable donations to disguise a scheme. Cher also sued him over Altor Bioscience that same year, alleged he bought her out at 1.50 a share and then turned around and acquired the rest for 15 million.

IBRX. Same self-dealing playbook. FDA warning letter, four active fraud class actions naming him personally, a 678 million dollar note he owes himself, balance sheet that says common holders eat last.

For the M&A heads. Every takeout thesis here walks past a guy who has run this play four times. Two clean exits, one public collapse with settled fraud allegations, and now this one, where he is being sued for telling the public things the FDA itself called false. Common holders are last in line in a structure run by a guy who has done this before.

That is not a thesis. That is a trap.

Yell at me, call me whatever. None of the receipts came from me. FDA, two courts, STAT, four law firms, and a 16.5 million dollar settlement on a prior bio. If I am wrong they all got the memo wrong too.

Make your own call. Just trying to keep folks out of a structure where they eat last.

M&A Hunter, 10 Deals and Counting, CPRX Joins the 2026 Takeout Wave

Angelini Pharma announced this morning they are buying Catalyst Pharmaceuticals for $4.1 billion. Italian private pharma group, US rare disease commercial asset, $31.50 per share cash. That makes 10 announced biotech deals in 2026 so far, totaling $41.6 billion. The takeout tape is running hot.

But the CPRX deal has a wrinkle worth flagging.

The premium is too light, and the lawyers know it

$31.50 against a prior unaffected reference price near $26 works out to a 21 percent premium. Sounds fine on the surface. But Catalyst has $589 million in revenue and $296 million in EBITDA, so the enterprise value at deal price comes out to roughly 12 times EBITDA. Rare disease takeouts in 2024 and 2025 closed in the 20 to 25 times EBITDA range. This is well below the comp set.

Within hours of the announcement, Ademi LLP and Halper Sadeh LLC both filed shareholder fair-price investigations. These investigations always show up on takeouts, but they show up faster and louder when the premium looks soft. That is exactly what we are seeing here.

Hold this one for a topper, not the deal close

This is the part to focus on. When a US rare disease commercial asset gets taken out at 12 times EBITDA by a foreign private buyer, two things usually happen next. Either a topping bid shows up from a Sanofi, Jazz, Ipsen, Recordati, or Chiesi who can pay 15 percent more and still get a strategic asset cheap. Or the board gets pushed via shareholder pressure to negotiate a sweetened bid before close.

Either way, the right move is to hold for the next 30 to 60 days and watch for a counter offer. The arb spread between current price and announced deal price is essentially zero, so selling now into the deal locks in a small gain but gives up the topper option entirely. If a counter shows up at fair value, the price moves to the high $30s. If it does not, the deal closes at $31.50 in 6 to 9 months pending antitrust. The downside is opportunity cost, not capital loss.

The fair-price lawsuits are the institutional signal. Two firms publicly investigating means there is real expectation that more is coming. Hold for the topper.

The 2026 takeout scorecard, 10 deals, $41.6B

This is what consolidation looks like when it is real. Every one of these names was on the radar before the deal hit.

CNTA to Lilly, $7.8 billion. Radiopharmaceutical platform.

OGN to Sun Pharma, $6.8 billion. Women's health and biosimilars commercial portfolio, India-based acquirer.

TERN to Merck, $6.7 billion. Oral GLP-1 obesity asset.

APLS to Biogen, $5.6 billion upfront. Complement platform with SYFOVRE in geographic atrophy and EMPAVELI in PNH.

CPRX to Angelini Pharma, $4.1 billion. Rare disease commercial portfolio.

SLNO to Neurocrine, $2.9 billion. Prader-Willi syndrome rare disease asset.

DAWN to Servier, $2.5 billion. Oncology bispecific platform, French acquirer.

RAPT to GSK, $2.2 billion. Immunology and inflammation pipeline.

KALV to Chiesi, $1.9 billion. Hereditary angioedema oral therapy, Italian acquirer.

ESPR to ARCHIMED, $1.1 billion. Cardiovascular commercial NEXLETOL franchise.

Three themes driving the 2026 tape

European pharma is shopping aggressively in the US. Angelini, Servier, Chiesi, ARCHIMED have all closed deals this year. CPRX is the second Italian deal this week alongside KALV. The dollar economics work and orphan drug pricing is durable.

Rare disease and orphan drug commercial assets in the $1B to $8B range are the sweet spot. Angelini at $4.1B for CPRX, Chiesi at $1.9B for KALV, ARCHIMED at $1.1B for ESPR, Neurocrine at $2.9B for SLNO. Big pharma plus mid-cap European pharma plus PE-backed buyers all hunting in the same zone.

Big pharma is going large where strategic fit is right. Merck paid $6.7B for TERN to add to obesity, Lilly paid $7.8B for CNTA to add to radiopharm, Biogen paid $5.6B upfront for APLS to add to complement. These are franchise acquisitions, not tuck-ins.

The takeaway

Italian pharma got CPRX cheap. The market knows it. The fair-price lawsuits are filed. Hold for a topper and watch the next 30 days. If a counter does not materialize, the deal closes at $31.50. If it does, the price moves materially higher.

10 deals, $41.6 billion, 2026 is the year European pharma came shopping in the US.

Alpha Tau Medical's first oral slot at the world's premier GI meeting just happened. The official release has details that strengthen the thesis. Here's what was presented and what changes my read.

The Data

Alpha Tau Medical (NASDAQ: DRTS, DRTSW) presented updated pooled results from two first-in-human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) trials at Digestive Disease Week 2026 on Saturday, May 2 in the Pancreatic Cancer I session. First time Alpha DaRT clinical results have been selected for oral presentation at a major gastroenterology conference.

Pooled results from the two Hadassah Medical Center trials in Jerusalem, 19 evaluable patients per modified RECIST v1.1:

100 percent local disease control

15 patients (79 percent) stable disease. 4 patients (21 percent) partial response.

Patient population was tough by design. Heterogeneous cohort treating both localized unresectable AND metastatic pancreatic cancers. Included patients ineligible for chemotherapy and patients who had received up to four prior lines of chemotherapy.

That metastatic detail matters. Most local pancreatic therapies get studied in localized disease only, because if you have distant disease the local tumor is arguably less relevant to survival. But there's a real subset of metastatic PDAC patients where the primary tumor itself causes the suffering. Pain, biliary obstruction, gastric outlet obstruction, bleeding. Local control matters for quality of life even when systemic disease is present. Showing local control works regardless of disease stage expands the addressable population.

Safety: 8 device-associated adverse events in 7 of 26 subjects (27 percent), nearly all resolving within two weeks. One case of lingering fatigue.

Why PDAC Specifically Matters

The official release names the indication as pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. PDAC is the dominant histology, around 90 percent of pancreatic cancers, and the most aggressive and treatment-resistant subtype. This is not the indolent or rare pancreatic variants. This is the bad one. 100 percent local control in PDAC specifically is a stronger data point than generic pancreatic.

The Radiation Oncology Positioning

The presenter, Philip Blumenfeld, MD, Director of Advanced Radiotherapy Unit at Hadassah, framed Alpha DaRT against SBRT (stereotactic body radiation therapy), the modern external beam approach. His point: SBRT in pancreas is "constrained by the close proximity of critical gastrointestinal structures." Alpha DaRT, being implanted with millimeter-range alpha radiation, sidesteps that constraint entirely.

This is the radiation oncologist's framing, not the company's marketing. KOL positioning Alpha DaRT as a tool in the radiation oncology arsenal where SBRT hits a wall. That's the right narrative for the field to adopt the technology.

The IMPACT Trial Bridge

Robert Den, MD, CMO, explicitly tied the Jerusalem data to the US multicenter IMPACT trial advancement. That's the regulatory bridge. Foreign data does not get FDA approval directly, but consistency of safety and signal across cohorts justifies trial expansion. IMPACT enrollment momentum likely accelerates after this readout. April's FDA IDE supplement approval added the gemcitabine plus Abraxane combination arm to IMPACT, so the US trial is set up to read out the localized treatment plus systemic chemo combination thesis.

The EUS Workflow Wedge

Alpha DaRT delivery via endoscopic ultrasound is the commercial pivot. Gastroenterologists already perform EUS routinely. Adding Alpha DaRT seed delivery to existing endoscopy suites means real-world adoption potential without a new infrastructure buildout.

Pancreatic cancer treatment has historically required oncology referrals, radiation oncology coordination, and complicated multi-modal scheduling. EUS workflow integration changes the addressable channel. The treatment goes where the patients already go.

The Shelf I Need to Flag

Six business days before DDW, Alpha Tau filed a Form F-3 shelf registration to offer up to $300 million of securities. The base prospectus includes an at-the-market sales agreement permitting up to $100 million of ordinary shares to be sold through HC Wainwright.

Read the timing. Filing a $300M shelf with $100M ATM a few business days before DDW and roughly four weeks before ASCO is deliberate. Management is positioning to tap equity into data strength. Smart for the company. Mixed for existing holders.

ATMs via HC Wainwright are typically dribble issuance at market, not a marketed deal at a fixed discount. Less dilutive per share than a bought deal, but still up to 13 percent dilution at max issuance against the current ~$750M mcap. Acquirers also don't love seeing a target raise capital pre-deal.

This is a real flag. Strong data plus a hot ATM equals a known overhang.

Dual Scoring

M&A Score: 76, High

Drivers: radiopharm M&A heat (Novartis bought Mariana, Lilly bought Point Biopharma at $1.4B, BMS bought RayzeBio at $4.1B, AstraZeneca bought Fusion at $2B), differentiated alpha-emitter seed tech, Japan approval secured, FDA PMA modular submission active, IMPACT trial active in US, multi-indication platform, mcap takeout-friendly.

Deductions: dilutive raise via $100M ATM, stock printing 52W high ahead of binary catalyst, single platform reliance, implanted seed format harder to scale than IV radioligands.

Growth Score: 78, High

Commercial Trajectory: 22/30. Platform Expansion: 17/20. Regulatory Momentum: 13/15. Financial Strength: 12/15. Market Position: 8/10. Management Execution: 6/10.

Tag: Dual Catalyst. Both scores above 75.

Catalyst Stack

May 17. Q1 2026 earnings. May 21. ASCO abstract publishes 5pm ET. May 29 to June 2. ASCO Annual Meeting. 58 patient pooled pancreatic data oral presentation. Headline catalyst. Ongoing. ATM tap timing, watch 6-K filings. H2 2026 to 2027. FDA PMA modular submission progress (skin), IMPACT trial data (US pancreatic).

Analyst Stack

6 analysts. Mean PT $9.69, median $10.71, range $5.05 to $12.60. Recs: 4 strong buy, 4 buy, 2 hold, 0 sell.

Citigroup Buy $9 (no haircut). HC Wainwright Strong Buy $12 with the 15 percent haircut applied gives $10.20. Piper Sandler Hold $5 stays the bear thesis anchor on FDA path complexity.

Bottom Line

DDW was a clean win. 100 percent local control in PDAC, the worst pancreatic histology, regardless of whether disease was localized or metastatic, in patients who had failed up to 4 prior lines of therapy, delivered through a workflow gastroenterologists already do.

That's a tighter pitch than the headline number. The clinical narrative is durable. KOL framing places Alpha DaRT in the radiation oncology toolkit specifically where SBRT hits its anatomical wall. The Jerusalem data builds the foundation for IMPACT in the US.

The trade-off is the shelf. Up to $100M dribbling out via ATM into whatever ASCO produces. That caps near-term upside on good data and accelerates downside on bad data.

ASCO is the headline. May 29 to June 2 with 58 patient pooled data is the move that matters. DDW set the stage.
New M&A report after ASCO

I run one of the top finance & biotech Stacks best seller & all & it's a full time job lol. I have a multi part series on the corruption & long term mob influence in sports. My mom's family were deep in "The Life" & I grew up hearing all the stories & have verified them all with facts. I asked my audience & they are not interested most are PHD MD biotech or banking folks & are so focused. This is solid stuff all true & a lot that sports fans don't know I am open to talking about working something out if your interested.

I run a bestselling top financial stack & I am looking for an AI artist on stack who can make a portrait resembling the Sgt Peppers cover with the top subs in my group dressed up as the cover. I have detailed info needed for the prompt as far as what the folks should look like BUT I have 0 tech skills I am a stock guy.

I run a bestselling top financial stack & I am looking for an AI artist on stack who can make a portrait resembling the Sgt Peppers cover with the top subs in my group dressed up as the cover. I have detailed info needed for the prompt as far as what the folks should look like BUT I have 0 tech skills I am a stock guy.

The M&A Hunter Scoreboard

Stack subscribers know the model. We hunt small and mid cap names where consolidation pressure is real, where the science holds up, where the cap structure works for a buyer, and where the tape has not yet caught on. Some names work standalone. Some get taken out. The takeouts are the fun ones.

M&A Hunter launched in November 2025. Six months in, nine names from the coverage have hit a takeout offer. Eight in biotech. One in regional banking, where local and regional bank consolidation is the parallel thesis we have been running. That is the scoreboard. Quick recap of where we have landed.

1. RAPT to GSK

Announced January 20 2026, closed March 3. $58.00 per share in cash. $2.2 billion equity, $1.9 billion net of cash. 65% premium to the prior close. RAPT had ozureprubart, an anti-IgE mAb for food allergy prophylaxis in Phase 2b. GSK's first major deal under new CEO Luke Miels.

2. DAWN, Day One Biopharmaceuticals to Servier

Announced March 6 2026, closed April 23. $21.50 per share cash. $2.5 billion equity. 68% premium to prior close, 86% to 30 day VWAP. The asset was Ojemda, the only FDA-approved monotherapy for pediatric low grade glioma with BRAF alterations, plus the Mersana ADC pipeline. Tender 85.34%. Was Miami Tier 1.

3. TERN, Terns Pharmaceuticals to Merck

Announced March 25 2026. $53.00 per share cash. $6.7 billion equity, $5.7 billion net. 31% premium to 60-day VWAP, 42% to 90-day VWAP. Tender launched April 7, closes Q2 2026. The asset was TERN-701, an oral allosteric BCR::ABL1 TKI in Phase 1/2 for CML. Merck's third multibillion-dollar deal in the past year as the Keytruda patent cliff approaches. Was Miami Tier 1.

4. CNTA, Centessa Pharmaceuticals to Eli Lilly

Announced March 31 2026. $38.00 per share upfront cash plus a CVR worth up to $9.00 tied to clinical and regulatory milestones. $7.8 billion total deal value, $6.3 billion upfront. The asset was cleminorexton (ORX750) plus ORX142, OX2R agonists for narcolepsy type 1, narcolepsy type 2, and idiopathic hypersomnia. Largest deal in the cohort. Was Miami Tier 3.

5. APLS, Apellis Pharmaceuticals to Biogen

Announced March 31 2026, tender launched April 14. $41.00 per share cash plus a CVR worth up to $4.00 (two payments of $2 each tied to SYFOVRE global net sales milestones). $5.6 billion upfront. 140% premium to the March 30 close of $17.09. Largest premium in the cohort, by a mile. Biogen wanted EMPAVELI for the complement franchise (C3G, IC-MPGN, PNH) and SYFOVRE for the geographic atrophy footprint. $689 million in 2025 net product revenue, with the company having just achieved its first year of profitability.

6. SLNO, Soleno Therapeutics to Neurocrine Biosciences

Announced April 6 2026. $53.00 per share cash. $2.9 billion equity. 34% premium. The asset was VYKAT XR, the first and only FDA approved therapy for hyperphagia in Prader-Willi syndrome. $190.4 million in 2025 sales despite less than nine months on market, with 859 active patients, 630 prescribers, and roughly 12.5% of the US addressable market penetrated already. Tender launched April 20.

7. OGN, Organon to Sun Pharma

Announced April 26 2026. $14.00 per share cash. $6.8 billion equity, $11.75 billion EV. 103% premium to the unaffected April 9 close. Largest Indian pharma deal ever. Biosimilars and women's health franchise. Closes early 2027.

8. KALV, KalVista Pharmaceuticals to Chiesi Group

Announced April 29 2026, today. $27.00 per share cash tender. $1.9 billion equity. 40% premium. The asset was EKTERLY (sebetralstat), the first oral on demand HAE therapy. Chiesi's largest acquisition ever. Closes Q3.

9. LNKB, LINKBANCORP to Burke & Herbert (BHRB)

Announced December 18 2025. All stock deal. $9.38 per share based on the BHRB closing price the day before, exchange ratio of 0.1350 BHRB shares per LNKB share. $354 million equity. Shareholder vote approved March 25, regulatory approvals received April 13, expected to close May 1 2026. Creates an $11.0 billion asset bank with $9.1 billion in deposits, 100 plus branches across Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. This is the local and regional bank consolidation thesis playing out exactly as scripted. Smaller community bank with valuable deposit franchise gets folded into a stronger, expanding regional. We expect more of these.

The Read

Nine names. Nine different buyers. $36.65 billion in aggregate equity. No concentration. GSK, Servier, Merck, Lilly, Biogen, Neurocrine, Sun Pharma, Chiesi, Burke & Herbert. American big pharma, French foundation pharma, Italian family-owned, Indian generics specialist, Mid-Atlantic community banker. Different motivations, same conclusion. They needed what was on our list.

April 2026 was the month. Six of the nine moved on the tape in the last 30 days. DAWN closed. TERN HSR cleared. SLNO announced and tendered. OGN announced. KALV announced. LNKB regulatory approvals received with closing scheduled May 1. There is a real wave underway in rare disease, complement biology, neuroscience, specialty pharma, and regional banking, and the pattern is going to continue through the back half of 2026.

A few things worth flagging.

Premium dispersion is huge. SLNO got 34%, KALV got 40%, RAPT got 65%, DAWN got 68%, OGN got 103%, APLS got 140%. The spread tells you something. When a buyer is desperate (Biogen needed revenue diversification), you see triple-digit premiums. When the buyer has multiple options (Neurocrine on SLNO), you see 30s. The takeaway for hunting is that buyer urgency matters at least as much as asset quality. Asset quality gets you on the list. Buyer urgency moves the price.

Lilly has been busy. CNTA in the coverage, Kelonia in the broader vertical, plus Stemcell Therapeutics. The neuroscience and cell therapy build is live. There are more LLY deals coming.

Biogen at 140% is the loudest signal in the cohort. A buyer paying that kind of premium is not optimizing return. They are buying time. That is what revenue desperation looks like, and it tells you which other names with commercial assets and challenged buyers might come next.

Regional banks are quietly working. LNKB is the first hit on the banking thesis but the setup is identical to what we have flagged before. Sub $5 billion in assets, valuable deposit franchise, larger acquirer with capital available, regulatory environment supportive of consolidation. This was not the loudest deal of the year, but it is the cleanest validation of the framework.

What This Means For The List

Six months. Nine hits. The names still on Miami Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 that have not yet been touched are the next set worth watching closely. The buyer field is deep. The cell therapy vertical is still hot. The complement and rare disease verticals just printed money for shareholders. The regional banking trade is just getting started. We keep doing the work, and we let the tape come to us.

If you have been here from launch, you saw most of these called early. If you are new, this is what the model looks like when it works.

More to come. The tape is not done.
Updated Scoreboard, Bio Hits 2026

1. RAPT to GSK, $2.2B
2. DAWN to Servier, $2.5B
3. TERN to Merck, $6.7B
4. CNTA to Lilly, $7.8B
5. APLS to Biogen, $5.6B upfront
6. SLNO to Neurocrine, $2.9B
7. OGN to Sun Pharma, $6.8B
8. KALV to Chiesi, $1.9B
9. ESPR to ARCHIMED, $1.1B

Plus LNKB to BHRB ($354M) on the banking side, closing today May 1.