MedReleaf Makes MED Colombia Deal

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 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 »
Roche Builds on its Foundation Medicine Deal

Roche Builds on its Foundation Medicine Deal

Three years after its first investment, Roche AG (SIX: RO) bought the rest of Foundation Medicine, Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based molecular information company. In January 2015, Roche plunked down $1.03 billion to acquire approximately 57% of Foundation Medicine from its venture capital backers Google Ventures, Third Rock Ventures and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Roche acquired approximately 15.6 million shares in Foundation at $50 per share. It also invested $250 million by acquiring 5 million newly issued shares at $50 per share. My, how times (and markets) have changed. On June 19, Roche announced it would pay $2.4 billion to buy the shares it didn’t own. The... Read More »
Eli Lilly Doubles Down on Immuno-Oncology

Eli Lilly Doubles Down on Immuno-Oncology

ARMO BioSciences (NASDAQ: ARMO) is a late-stage immuno-oncology company that develops a pipeline of novel, proprietary product candidates designed to activate the immune system of cancer patients to recognize and eradicate tumors. On a trailing 12-month basis, it generated a net loss of $42.4 million. Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) overlooked the loss as it eyed the real prize–the addition of pegilodecakin, a PEGylated IL-10, which has demonstrated clinical benefits as a single agent, and in combination with both chemotherapy and checkpoint inhibitor therapy, across several tumor types. Pegilodecakin is currently being studied in a Phase 3 clinical trial in pancreatic cancer, and... Read More »

Takeda Takes on Shire for $81.5 Billion

Big Pharma deals are back, more than ever. After six weeks of offers, refusals, talks and more, Japanese drug giant Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (OTCQB: TKPYY) reached an agreement to acquire Shire plc (NASDAQ: SHPG) for $81.5 billion, including assumed debt of $19.54 billion. It’s the largest healthcare deal announced ever, unless you count Pfizer’s (NYSE: PFE) hostile stalking of AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) through much of 2014, with bids reported to be around $118 billion. And we don’t. Looking back over past pharmaceutical deals (that closed), this takes the record from Pfizer, which announced its acquisition of Wyeth, Inc. for approximately $78.5 billion, including $10.5 billion... Read More »
Catalent Takes Juniper Pharmaceuticals Private

Takeda Takes Aim at Shire

Big Pharma deals are making a comeback. Or so it seems from the speculation around Shire plc (NASDAQ: SHPG). Japanese drug maker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. (OTCQB: TKPYY) has been buzzing around the UK-based Shire for nearly a month, making bid after bid. It seemed to begin on April 16, when Shire sold its oncology business to the French drug maker Servier, for $2.4 billion in cash. In 2017, the 0ncology business generated revenues of $262 million. The total consideration represents a revenue multiple of 9.2x 2017 revenues. The acquisition gives Servier a direct commercial presence in the United States and boosts its presence in cancer. Servier’s products will be commercialized in the... Read More »