Allergan Inks its Third Deal of the Year
As of mid-March, Allergan (NYSE: AGN) has spent nearly $4 billion on three acquisitions in 2017. Although its $2.48 billion purchase of ZELTIQ® Aesthetics, Inc. accounts for most of that total, the pharmaceutical giant hasn’t failed to strengthen its several pipelines in the meantime. On January 9, 2017, it purchased global rights to Assembly Biosciences’ (NASDAQ: ASMB) preclinical compounds for $50 million upfront. The compounds include ABI-M201 and ABI-M301, for ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD), as well as two additional compounds to be identified by Assembly for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Then, on March 14, Allergan entered a strategic research and development... Read More »
Health Care Deals Cratered in February 2017
After a very strong performance in January 2017 with 160 transactions announced, February’s deal volume collapsed 45%, to just 88 transactions (see chart below). Compared with the same month a year ago, it’s was only down 30%, to 125 deals. Don’t forget, 2016 was a leap year, so an additional six more deals snuck into last year’s results on February 29. What difference that doesn’t make for this year’s results. Yes, it’s all because of the uncertainty around the fate of the Affordable Care Act. Many of the services sectors will be effected by what becomes of Medicaid, whether states will receive block grants, or some other solution. At least two of... Read More »Perrigo Lets Go of Tysabri Royalties
What goes around comes around. It doesn’t seem that long ago that the Dublin-based drug firm Elan Corporation plc was fighting off the hostile advances of Royalty Pharma. It was July 2013, in fact, when Elan agreed to be acquired by Perrigo (NYSE: PRGO) for $8.6 billion. To refresh the memory, Elan was a biotech company whose portfolio included royalties from Tysabri®, a multiple sclerosis treatment, and a neuropsychiatric pipeline with near-term value creation potential. Early February 2013, Elan sold half of its rights to Tysabri to Biogen Idec, now known as Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB), for $3.25 billion. At the time, the terms called for $3.25 billion upfront cash plus 12% of... Read More »January Deal Volume Beats December 2016 and January 2016
The year got off to a good start, as far as mergers and acquisitions are concerned. Deal volume reached 156 transactions in January, up 19% compared with December 2016, and up 50% over January 2016. It’s easy to point to the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, held in January, as the cause of the sudden boost, particularly in the Biotechnology and eHealth sectors. But the conference didn’t have the same effect last January, when just 104 deals were reported, and those two sectors didn’t see comparable deal volume. If anything, deal volume might have been expected to decline, considering all the “repeal and replace” talk from the incoming Republican administration. That obviously... Read More »Mallinckrodt Divests to Pursue Specialty Pharma Niche
The latest watchword for the pharmaceutical industry is “specialization,” as in “specialization is a safer bet than diversification.” A lot of big-name pharma companies are divesting their non-core businesses in order to target specific therapeutics and disease areas. The most recent example is Mallinckrodt plc (NYSE:MNK), which has sold off approximately $893 million of its assets in the past six months, in order to focus on its specialty pharmaceutical platforms in autoimmune and rare diseases. In August 2016, Mallinckrodt sold its nuclear imaging business for $690 million to IBA Molecular, a global manufacturer and distributor of... Read More »Schedule a demo
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