The Old Irish Shuffle Play

by | Jun 15, 2015 7:42 pm | Laboratories, MRI & Dialysis, Pharmaceuticals

A bit of financial wheeling and dealing occurred last week, as Altan Pharma Limited, a privately held pharmaceutical company based in Dublin, Ireland, announced its acquisition of Madrid-based GES Group, which is comprised of GES Genéricos Españoles Laboratorio; Genfarma Laboratorio, S.L. and Biomendi, S.A.U. The price was €87.5 million ($98.3 million, approximately). What the announcement left out was that, on the same day, Dublin-based Malin plc invested €34.5 million ($38.9 million, approximately) to gain a 65% equity stake in Altan Pharma. While Altan is a central player to these transactions, it lacks a website, as well as a corporate address. But now it owns GES Group, which... Read More »

Five Biggest Healthcare Deals in May 2015

by | Jun 1, 2015 7:06 pm | Pharmaceuticals

The last week of May slowed to a crawl as far as announced health care transactions, but preliminary totals for deal volume and value indicate that May 2015 wasn’t too shabby. As of May 29, we counted 101 healthcare transactions, with a combined total of $32.4 billion. A year ago, there were 109 M&A announcements, for a total of $27.5 billion. We’ll go into detail in the June issue of Health Care M&A News, so watch for the publication announcement later this week.  Read More »

The Only Pharma Deal Announced Last Week

by | Jun 1, 2015 6:56 pm | Pharmaceuticals

You know it’s a quiet week for healthcare M&A when only one pharmaceutical deal is announced. Last week, Tanner Pharmaceuticals, a portfolio company of Bourne Partners, paid an undisclosed sum for specialty pharma company BurnsAdler Pharmaceuticals. Both companies are based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The two have merged to form Tanner Pharma Group, which includes Tanner Clinical Trial Sourcing, Tanner Global Access Programmes, and Tanner Licensing, Acquisition and Commercialisation. Although the company is headquartered in the United States, it has offices in London, Sao Paulo and Mexico City.   Read More »

CVS Wins Omnicare Auction

by | May 26, 2015 6:33 pm | Pharmaceuticals

Omnicare Inc. (NYSE: OCR) put itself on the market in April, with bids due in May. At the time, its market value was estimated to be about $8.5 billion. CVS Health Corp. (NYSE: CVS), Express Scripts Holding Co. (NASDAQ: ESRX), McKesson Corp. (NYSE: MCK) and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (NASDAQ: WBA) were expected to kick the tires. Last week, CVS won the deal with $12.7 billion, including $2.3 billion in debt. Omnicare’s big draw is its specialty pharmaceutical business focused on assisted living and long-term care facilities. The deal follows UnitedHealth Group’s (NYSE: UNH) $12.8 billion acquisition of pharmacy benefits manager Catamaran Corp. (NASDAQ: CTRX) in March and Rite Aid... Read More »

Alexion Bets Big on Rare Diseases

by | May 11, 2015 5:44 pm | Pharmaceuticals

It was another busy week for pharmaceutical deals, but Alexion (NASDAQ: ALXN) took the prize for biggest deal with its $8.4 billion acquisition of Synageva BioPharma Corp., a privately held pharma company specializing in treatments for rare diseases. Alexion touted the fact that Synageva’s pipeline complements its own and the combined company will be one of the most robust rare disease pipelines, with more than 30 diverse pre-clinical programs. The price consists of $115 in cash and 0.6581 ALXN shares for each share of Synageva, implying a total per-share value of $230, based on the nine-day volume-weighted average closing price of Alexion stock through May 5, 2015. Read More »

Busy Year for Billion-Dollar Health Care Deals

by | May 11, 2015 5:35 pm | Other Services, Pharmaceuticals

Last week we noted that April was a slow month for healthcare deals. Then we checked our database, DealSearchOnline.com, and discovered there have been 19 billion-dollar deal announcements already in 2015, through May 8th, with a combined total of $103.6 billion. The total for the entire year is about to top $120 billion, on 487 transactions. That’s not on track to beat 2014, yet. Read More »