Buyers Flock to Pharmaceuticals, Again
Pharmaceutical deal activity made a comeback in the second quarter of 2018, with 41 transactions reported, and counting. That is the highest quarterly haul in two years, but what happened to dealmaking in the intervening period? Deal volume dropped off soon after the 2016 presidential election, as companies and investors waited for President Trump’s promised tax overhaul. That legislation came in December 2017, and activity in this sector has picked up accordingly. In fact, the second quarter’s deal volume was 64% greater than that of the first quarter, and 156% better than what was reported in the second quarter of 2017, the sector’s nadir. One of those transactions was a record-breaking... Read More »
The Power of the FDA
What happens when the FDA rejects not one drug application, but two, in a short period of time? Your share price plunges by nearly 90%. And then you look for options. Such was the dilemma faced by UK-based drug maker Vernalis plc. So, last March the Vernalis board started looking for offers to buy the company. One attraction was that it had close to $34 million of cash that would be at the disposal of a buyer. Publicly traded Ligand Pharmaceuticals emerged as the buyer, paying about $42 million, or a 45.7% premium to the closing price the day before the sales process was announced in March. It was just a 1.7% premium to the volume weighted average price for the three months before the... Read More »
Dermatology Drug Portfolios Trade Hands
Dermatology physician practics are all the rage among private equity groups these days. Thirty deals targeting this specialty have been announced in the first seven months of 2018. All have been acquired by a private equity firm or one of their platform companies. But in the first week of August, two international pharmaceutical companies acquired portfolios of dermatology brands from the likes of Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN) and Bayer AG (BAYGn.DE). Barcelona-based Almirall, S.A. (MCE: ALM) was the only company to disclose a price in its announcement. It agreed to pay $550 million upfront for Allergan’s U.S. dermatology portfolio, and a possible earn-out of up to $100 million based on... Read More »
MedReleaf Makes MED Colombia Deal
MedReleaf Corp. (TSX: LEAF) has a new South American subsidiary. The Markham, Ontario-based producer of cannabis-based pharmaceutical products, announced last week it has acquired MED Colombia SAS, in Bogota. The price was $3,120,000. MED Colombia has licenses in Colombia to cultivate cannabis and produce cannabis oil extracts, along with a library of cannabis genetics. With this acquisition, MedReleaf is able to produce low-cost, high quality raw materials to serve its global supply chain, as well as the domestic Colombian medical cannabis market. Colombia legalized medical cannabis in 2015, and MedReleaf has had a team operating there since 2017. On a trailing 12-month basis, MedReleaf... Read More »
Catalent Takes Juniper Pharmaceuticals Private
Catalent, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTLT), a contract research organization (CRO), announced its acquisition of thinly traded nano cap Juniper Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: JPR) for $139.6 million. Catalent, based in Somerset, New Jersey, offers development services, delivery technologies and supply solutions for drugs and biologics. On a trailing 12-month basis, the company generated revenue of $2.4 billion, and EBITDA of $484.6 million. Juniper, based in Boston, Massachusetts, focuses on developing novel intra-vaginal therapeutics that address unmet medical needs in women’s health. This deal includes Juniper’s UK-based Juniper Pharma Services division, a high-end CRO. The transaction... Read More »Schedule a demo
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