Pfizer's Medivation Deal Latest in Long Line of Similar Acquisitions
August 22 2016 - 12:52PM
Dow Jones News
By Jonathan D. Rockoff
Pfizer's $14 billion deal to buy Medivation and its
prostate-cancer drug Xtandi is the latest in a long line of big
pharmaceutical company acquisitions of smaller companies with
prized assets. Sometimes, the big pharmaceutical companies do the
deals to plug in the sales of already approved and big-selling
drugs; other times, it is to acquire medicines in development that
show strong potential. Here is a list of some other notable
transactions from the past several years.
AbbVie-Pharmacyclics . Last year, AbbVie Inc. paid $21 billion
for Pharmacyclics to obtain its blockbuster blood-cancer drug
Imbruvica. AbbVie outbid rivals including Johnson & Johnson,
which also sells Imbruvica, to reduce its reliance on the world's
top-selling drug, rheumatoid arthritis therapy Humira. AbbVie
reported net revenues of $820 million from Imbruvica during the
first half of this year.
Gilead-Pharmasset. The $11 billion purchase of Pharmasset,
considered a hefty sum at the time of the deal four years ago, may
go down as one of the drug industry's most lucrative transactions.
Gilead Sciences Inc. obtained a promising but still unapproved
hepatitis C drug. That compound was named Sovaldi upon its
subsequent approval and later included in a combination drug called
Harvoni. That franchise has gone on to be a top industry
moneymaker, notching $19.1 billion in sales last year. Their price
tags, of $1,000 a day or more, has also generated criticism of
Gilead and industry pricing in general.
Amgen-Onyx . Onyx was selling a multiple-myeloma drug named
Kyprolis that Amgen Inc. sought in a $10.4 billion takeover in
2013. Amgen was one of the pioneering biotechs, famed for the
cancer drugs that poured out from its labs, but those products were
aging. Kyprolis sales, totaling $512 million last fiscal year, have
given the company a boost.
Celgene-Receptos. Last August, cancer-drug company Celgene Corp.
bought Receptos and its experimental multiple-sclerosis drug
ozanimod for $7.2 billion. Celgene hopes the acquisition will help
the company diversify beyond its franchise of multiple-myeloma
drugs and into autoimmune diseases. Ozanimod is still under
development.
Bristol-Medarex. Bristol-Myers Squibb & Co. took a big risk
when it bought Medarex for $2.1 billion 2009. The partners had been
chasing a longtime elusive goal of drug researchers: unlocking the
body's immune system so it could fight cancer. The bet paid off.
Now Bristol sells two such immunotherapies, Yervoy and Opdivo, and
leads the market for the medicines that analysts expect will top
$23 billion in 2020. Rivals, including Pfizer, are trying to catch
up.
Merck-Cubist. Merck & Co. celebrated its $8.4 billion
agreement in late 2014 to buy Cubist Pharmaceuticals and its
antibiotic Cubicin. Cubicin generated nearly $1 billion in yearly
sales, and it fit into Merck's expanding portfolio of antibiotics
and other drugs given in hospitals. Yet just hours after the deal's
announcement, a judge invalidated some key Cubicin patents. Late
last year, Merck lost its appeal, which paves the way for Pfizer to
sell a generic version of Cubist as early as this year.
Write to Jonathan D. Rockoff at Jonathan.Rockoff@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 22, 2016 12:37 ET (16:37 GMT)
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