Avidity (RNA) Gets 26% Jump on Potential Takeover

We recently published 10 Stocks With Easy 15-30% Upside. Avidity Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:RNA) is one of the best-performing stocks on Wednesday.

Avidity Biosciences rallied for a third day on Wednesday, jumping 26.14 percent to close at $48.26 as investors gobbled up shares following reports that it received an acquisition bid from Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS).

A report by the Financial Times, citing people privy to the matter, said that Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) offered Avidity Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:RNA) to acquire the company, in line with the former’s plans to boost its pipeline of medicines targeting rare genetic disorders.

Meanwhile, the report said that Avidity Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:RNA) was mulling over the offer, although the talks could still collapse as other companies have emerged with separate takeover offers.

Late last month, Avidity Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:RNA) secured a Breakthrough Therapy designation from the Food and Drug Administration for its del-zota treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in patients with DMD44.

DMD is a rare genetic condition characterized by progressive muscle damage and weakness due to the loss of dystrophin protein that typically starts at a young age. Del-zota, on the other hand, was designed to deliver phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers (PMOs) to skeletal muscle and heart tissue to specifically skip exon 44 of the dystrophin gene and enable production of near-full length dystrophin.