Aurinia Pharmaceuticals quick uptick on renewed takeover speculation on Biogen news
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Aurinia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AUPH) reversed an earlier decline as is now up 0.6% after renewed speculation that Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB) could be a possible acquirer of the company. 
The speculation in Dealreporter's morning piece comes after Biogen last night announced it agreed to sell a stake in Samsung Bioepis for more than $2B. Some potential targets for Biogen include Aurinia, Neurocrine Bioscience (NASDAQ:NBIX) and Biohaven Pharmaceutical (NYSE:BHVN), the report speculated. 
The speculation comes after a Stat News report earlier this month said that Biogen is working with Goldman Sachs to find potential targets for the company. 
The list of candidate in the Stat News report included Aurinia (AUPH), BioHaven (BHVN) and Amylyx (NASDAQ:AMLX). BioHaven (BHVN) shares gained 2.8%, Neurocrine (NBIX) rose 3.2% and Amylyx (AMLX) advanced 1.4%.
Aurinia has been the subject of rampant takeover speculation in recent months after Bloomberg reported in late October that
Bristol-Myers (NYSE:BMY) indicated interest in acquiring AUPH. 
Early last month Betaville reported that the AUPH was said to be close to deciding on a preferred bidder in its strategic review. There has also been speculation that GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) may have interest, though GSK denied the report.
Earlier, Biogenâs plan to sell stake in Samsung Bioepis is âa step in the right directionâ - BofA.