Peter Kolchinsky’s Biotech Fund Doubles Achillion Pharmaceuticals Position

RA Capital, Achillion Pharmaceuticals: In a 13G filing with the SEC, Peter Kolchinsky‘s RA Capital disclosed that it owns nearly 15% of infectious disease-focused biopharma player Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACHN). This is an increase of nearly twofold from RA’s position last quarter, and the stock is now the largest position in his entire equity portfolio (according to 13F figures).

At the end of September, Achillion said that the FDA did not remove the clinical hold on its NS3 protease inhibitor, sovaprerir, which is a part of its pipeline of therapies for the cure of chronic hepatitis C virus. “While we are disappointed that we were not able to resolve the clinical hold at this time despite having addressed all the issues, we believe the breadth of our portfolio allows us to quickly advance other all oral combination regimens for the treatment of HCV,” the President and Chief Executive Officer of Achillion, Milind Deshpande, said in a statement.

Qvt Financial, managed by Daniel Gold also owns shares of Achillion, with its stake involving almost 11 million shares of the company. James E. Flynn‘s Deerfield Management and Jerome Pfund and Michael Sjostrom‘s Sectoral Asset Management have smaller positions in the stock.

Disclosure: none

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