Immunology Biotech with Over 10% Shareholder and CFO Selling Simultaneously

BVF Partners, a major shareholder in MoonLake Immunotherapeutics (Nasdaq: MLTX), disclosed in its amended Schedule 13D filed with the SEC that its Class A common stock stake has declined to approximately 22.3%. The firm sold shares on the open market at $16.79 each on March 31 but emphasized that it has no separate activist agenda. On the same day, affiliated BVF funds holding more than 10% and involved at the board level also sold about 3.8 million shares, raising roughly $63 million (approximately ₩82 billion). They merely reconfirmed previously granted director stock‐option awards, with no new grants or exercises. Between April 9 and 10, CFO Mathias Bodenschatz sold about 88,000 shares under a pre-established Rule 10b5-1 trading plan to cover tax obligations, generating approximately $1.67 million (around ₩2.2 billion). He still holds about 1.18 million shares, valued at roughly $23.2 million (about ₩30 billion).

Recently, the company announced promising long‐term data from week 40 of its Phase 3 VELA-1 and VELA-2 trials of sonerolikumab in severe hidradenitis suppurativa, showing high rates of deep lesion clearance and reduced inflammation. MoonLake also said that, following discussions with the U.S. FDA, it received feedback indicating it could submit a Biologics License Application for the hidradenitis suppurativa indication in the second half of 2026 without conducting additional large-scale trials.

Headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, MoonLake is a clinical-stage immunology biotech focused on developing sonerolikumab—based on nanobody technology—for inflammatory diseases such as hidradenitis suppurativa, psoriatic arthritis and axial spondyloarthritis. While competition between large pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms in the inflammatory and autoimmune market remains intense, demand for next-generation biologics has kept institutional trading in clinical-stage biotechs like MoonLake active.