Swedish Orphan Drug Maker Moves into the U.S.
Ready or not, here comes Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (STO: SOBI). The company recently paid $1.5 billion to AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) in a double-sided deal. First, it’s acquiring the perpetual U.S. rights to Synagis (palivizumab), which prevents serious lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) caused by FSV in high-risk infants. The other side of the deal gives SOBI participation in 50% of the future earnings of AstraZeneca’s drug candidate MEDI8897, which it has been jointly developing with Sanofi Pasteur (NYSE: SNY) since March 2017. MEDI8897 is a follow-on candidate to Synagis and a monoclonal antibody (mAb) being investigated for the prevention of LRTI caused by RSV. Sobi... Read More »Takeda Takes on Shire for $81.5 Billion
Big Pharma deals are back, more than ever. After six weeks of offers, refusals, talks and more, Japanese drug giant Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (OTCQB: TKPYY) reached an agreement to acquire Shire plc (NASDAQ: SHPG) for $81.5 billion, including assumed debt of $19.54 billion. It’s the largest healthcare deal announced ever, unless you count Pfizer’s (NYSE: PFE) hostile stalking of AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) through much of 2014, with bids reported to be around $118 billion. And we don’t. Looking back over past pharmaceutical deals (that closed), this takes the record from Pfizer, which announced its acquisition of Wyeth, Inc. for approximately $78.5 billion, including $10.5 billion... Read More »
Pharmaceutical Deals Took a Dive in 2017
On the eve of the 36th annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, it’s only fitting to take a look at where pharmaceutical deals ended up at the end of 2017. Suffice to say, at a record low deal volume. Preliminary data show just 96 transactions for pharmaceutical targets were announced last year, the first time pharma deals have notched a two-digit deal volume since 2001 (87 deals then). That marks a 38% decline from 2016’s 156 transactions, and a 49% drop from the most recent high-mark of 188 deals announced in 2014. Spending was also anemic, with just $28.1 billion committed to finance those deals. That’s 67% below last year’s $84.8 billion, and 87% lower than the... Read More »MCOs Make Deals to Combat High Drug Costs
The rising cost of prescription drugs was part of many candidates’ campaign platforms in the 2016 national elections. The topic has not gone away, and is certainly a factor in the dearth of Big Pharma deals in 2017. Through June 15, M&A in the Pharma sector is down 43%, to 44 transactions, compared with the same period in 2016, which had 77 transactions. Spending is also down in for the first six months of 2017. Through June 15, acquirers announced $19.2 billion in committed financing, down 66% from the same period in 2016, when approximately $56.5 billion was spent. There are deals being done, regarding this issue, but most are not M&A. In fact, several managed care... Read More »Schedule a demo
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