Pharma M&A Is all about Options
The days of mega-mergers in the pharmaceutical sector aren’t necessarily over, but those deals will be fewer and farther between, going forward. Nearly 60 deals have been announced in 2016 through the middle of May, and just 17 have an entire company as the target. The largest, so far, is Shire’s (NASDAQ: SHPG) $32 billion takeover of Baxalta (NYSE: BXLT), announced in January. The rest are either collaborations on product candidates, rights or license deals for marketed products or clinical-stage candidates, even the rights to royalties. That’s Royalty Pharma’s $1.1 billion deal for the royalty interest in Xtandi, which is being sold by a co-owner, UCLA, where... Read More »AbbVie Buys a Pipeline
After only four deals announced in 2014 and 2015, AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) gained momentum in the M&A space this year in an effort to expand and diversify its portfolio. The timing isn’t a coincidence, since it faces the looming expiration of Humira’s patent in December. The drug that accounted for 63% of AbbVie’s 2014 sales could lose its dominant position in the autoimmune disease market as competitive generics take the field. In the first four months of 2016, AbbVie has dished out $6.4 billion on three deals (two collaborations and one acquisition). On March 7th, the company announced a collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim that added anti-IL-23 to its immunology pipeline. The... Read More »Abbott’s $30.7B Deal Boosts Medical Device M&A
Medical device deals are back in fashion. In the first four months of 2016, 41 deals were announced in this sector, compared with just 30 for the comparable time period in 2015. Spending on deals in this sector has already hit $42.7 billion, compared with $5.7 billion in the first four months of 2015. The largest by far this year is Abbott’s (NYSE: ABT) announcement on April 28 that it would spend $30.7 billion to acquire Minneapolis-based St. Jude Medical, Inc. (NYSE: SJM). St. Jude shareholders will receive $46.75 in cash and 0.8708 shares of Abbott common stock, representing total consideration of approximately $85 per share, and a transaction equity value of $25 billion. Add in... Read More »Pharmaceutical Deals, 2006 to 2015
Drug manufacturers came under heavy scrutiny late in 2015, both for their pricing practices and their penchant for acquiring overseas rivals to gain lower corporate tax rates. The latter issue was the major impetus for the lrgest health care deal ever announced, Pfizer’s (NYSE: PFE) $160 billion takeover of Dublin-based Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN). The Treasury deparment moved quickly to change its rules on “inversions,” making them even more onerous. Pfizer walked away from the deal, not surprisingly. Public sentiment about the high price of many drugs, including generics, is having a chill effect on this sector. 2016 may turn out to be a quiet year for pharma deals, at... Read More »Synta Pharma Merges with a New Drug Candidate
Oncology drug maker Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp. (NASDAQ: SNTA) had a run of bad luck in October 2015, when it terminated its GALAXY-2 trial of its lead candidate, ganestespib, and discontinued a substantial portion of its research and development activities related to the compound. Happy news, then, when Synta announced its merger with privately-held Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, whose lead compound, MGL-3196, is a Phase 2-ready, once-daily oral treatment for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and heterozygous and homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. In the all-stock transaction, valued at $60.9 million, Synta will acquire all outstanding shares of Madrigal in exchange for approximately... Read More »Schedule a demo
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