Year’s Biggest Billion-Dollar Deals Top $64 Billion

Already in 2015, we’ve recorded 11 billion-dollar-plus deals, for a total of $64.4 billion. Thanks to the $21 billion AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) bid for Pharmacyclics (NASDAQ: PCYC), the biotechnology sector accounted for $27.5 billion of those big deals. Pharmaceuticals, with four billion-plus transactions, still ranks first, with combined spending of $30.45 billion.  Read More »

AbbVie Wins Pharmacyclics

Everybody hates a winner, it seems. Last week’s announcement that AbbVie Inc. (NYSE: ABBV) won the bidding war for Pharmacyclics Inc. (NASDAQ: PCYC) had many analysts shaking their heads in disbelief. The consternation was over the price, which at $261.25 per share for PCYC came to approximately $21 billion, about 27.8x revenue and 165.6x EBITDA. The real prize for AbbVie is Imbruvica, an effective treatment against a form of leukemia and other diseases that Pharmacyclics is marketing under an agreement with Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ). J&J and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) were also in the final round of bidders. AbbVie’s shares fell nearly 6% on March 5, the day after the announcement,... Read More »

What U.S. Health Care Companies Are Buying Overseas

We’re hosting a webinar on March 12 called  Cross-Border M&A: Opportunities and Issues. As a run-up to it, here’s a peek at what U.S. health care companies have bought overseas in 2015, excluding the typical pharma/biotech rights and licensing deals. We’ve seen 13 acquisitions of foreign companies so far, better than the 10 recorded in the same period in 2014. In the first two months of this year, $2.3 billion has been committed to those transactions. See the chart below. Read More »

Kythera Biopharma Goes Bald

Kythera Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: KYTH), a clinical stage biopharma with a penchant for novel prescription products for the aesthetic medical market, entered into separate license agreements with Actellion Pharmceuticals Ltd. and the University of Pennsylvania last month. Actelion is selling the rights to setipiprant, a clinical-stage oral antagonist to the prostaglandin D2 receptor. Under the agreement with UPenn, Kythera acquired exclusive worldwide rights to certain patents covering the use of PGD2 receptor antagonists to treat hair loss. Not a very sexy-sounding way to look sexier, but it just might work. Read More »