A New York City hedge fund bought a 6.6 percent stake of a North Carolina pharmaceutical company, according to an SEC filing.
Deerfield Management now owns 4,896,741 shares of Durham-based BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc., worth $24.7 million. Deerfield will take no part in running BioCryst.
BioCryst announced a new drug trial the same day of the filing. This news comes six months after BioCryst shares dropped 70 percent in four days after its announcement of a failed drug trial in February.
BioCryst shares are up 75 percent from July 26, but have not fully recovered from February. The stock is still down 50 percent from late December and 62 percent from September.
Deerfield Management Company L.P. was launched in 1994 with $17 million in equity. It now manages more than $5 billion of funds.
Managing partner James Flynn joined Deerfield in 2000, focusing on pharmaceutical companies and gradually assuming broader responsibility throughout the firm.
BioCryst (Nasdaq: BCRX) shares closed Friday at $5.04, up 1 cent on the day.
A Schedule 13G is used to report a party’s ownership of stock that is over 5 percent of the company. Deerefield filed one on Aug. 12, 2016, which can be found here.
Note: This story is from the North Carolina Business News Wire, a service of UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Media and Journalism
