Icagen Stockholders Send Second Letter to Icagen Board to Contest Proposed Price of Acquisition by Pfizer

Merlin Nexus and New Leaf Venture Partners (NLV Partners), stockholders in Icagen, Inc. ICGN, submitted a second letter to the Icagen Board contesting the company's planned acquisition by Pfizer Inc PFE. According to a July 20, 2011 press announcement, Pfizer plans to purchase the shares of Icagen stock it already does not own at a price of $6.00 per share, resulting in an aggregate transaction value of approximately $56 million. On July 28, 2011, Merlin Nexus and NLV Partners sent a letter to the Icagen Board to contest the price of the acquisition, and now, following discussions with management, a second letter has been sent to the Board, noting that Merlin and NLV “continue to believe the purchase price dramatically undervalues Icagen's assets, and is not in the best interests of all stockholders.” Pfizer advanced the first of Icagen's proprietary compounds (PF-05089771) into a phase I single dose escalation study in December 2010, and this trial is estimated to have been completed in March 2011. As discussed in the current letter to the Icagen Board: “We believe Pfizer holds information that may be material to the value of the Nav1.7 program and there is therefore an asymmetry of information that provides Pfizer a greater advantage than that afforded to the remaining stockholders to determine the value of this program.”