Arbor Pharma Targets ‘Alcohol Use Disorder’ Drug

Specialty pharma company Arbor Pharmaceuticals has acquired XenoPort, Inc. (NASDAQ: XNPT), maker of Horizant, a potential treatment for patients with “alcohol use disorder.” XenoPort develops and commercializes a portfolio of product candidates for the treatment of neurological and other disorders in the United States. The company has entered into a clinical trial agreement with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Arbor will pay $7.03 per share in cash, or a total equity value of approximately $467 million. Centerview Partners is serving as exclusive financial advisor to XenoPort, and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP is serving as legal advisor to XenoPort.... Read More »

Pfizer: We’re So Over Allergan

Within hours after Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN) called off their $160 billion merger on April 26, 2016, Allergan announced a new acquisition. It’s taken a few weeks, but Pfizer is finally moving on. Anacor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ANAC) is the target, based in Palo Alto, California. Anacor Pharmaceuticals focuses on discovering, developing and commercializing novel small-molecule therapeutics derived from its boron chemistry platform. Its flagship asset is crisaborole, a differentiated non-steroidal toipcal PDE4 inhibitor with anti-inflammatory properties. Its currently under review by the FDA for the treatment of mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis, also... Read More »

Mylan Adds Topical Pharmaceuticals Business

Mylan NV (NASDAQ: MYL) still has money to spend, following its $9.9 billion deal for Swedish drug maker Meda AB in February. On Friday, May 13, RoundTable Healthcare Partners announced that its portfolio company, Renaissance Acquisition Holdings, LLC, had agreed to sell its non-sterile topical drug business to Mylan for $950 million, plus additional contingent payments of up to $50 million. The topical division is a specialty pharmaceutical business focused on manufacturing, developing, sales and marketing of branded and generic drug products. The acquisition brings a complementary portfolio of approximately 25 branded and generic topical products, an active pipeline of approximately 25... Read More »

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 »