Alpharma Responds to Unsolicited Proposal by King

Well, that didn’t take long. I figured al la other acquisition response timelines (e.g.; Genentech / Roche) the response would come next week. I guess Alpharma isn’t messing around.
The Alpharma reponse letter is included below:
Mr. Brian A. Markison
Chairman of the Board,
President and Chief Executive Officer
King Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
501 Fifth Street
Bristol, Tennessee 37620
Dear Mr. Markison:
Our [...]

King Tenders All Cash $1.4B Unsolicited Bid For Alphama

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Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago King Pharmaceuticals was trading 15% higher due to speculation Pfizer was buying them?
How many different ways are there to spell “market manipulation”?  Methinks not more than one.
King announced today that it has submitted a [...]

Genentech Drops The Other Shoe

We all knew it was just a matter of time until the “special committee” appointed to review the Roche officially rejected the buyout offer of $89/share.
The press release indicates a willingness to listen to offers that “recognizes the value of the company and reflects the significant benefits that would accrue” to an acquiring company.
Move along [...]

Icahn Responds to BMS Offer for ImClone

I love a little Icahn in the morning.
ImClone released a statement this morning indicating that the BMS offer substantially undervalues the company.
On Friday, ImClone closed $5.34 (almost 9%) above the BMS offer of $60/share. It will be interesting to watch this one shake out. I think Old Carl has some fight left in [...]

BMS Offers to Buy The Rest of ImClone

In a regulatory filing this morning, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced it has offered to buy the 83% of ImClone it doesn’t already own for an all cash, $60/share or $4.5B. This offer represented a 30% premium over yesterday’s close but already in premarket trading, ImClone has hit $65/share.
I’ve been trying to figure BMS out for [...]

Roche on Spending Spree

First Roche offers to buy Genentech for ~$44B and in two consecutive days has inked two more deals.
Yesterday, in its second RNAi play in a year, Roche bought Mirus Bio for $125M. The acquisition should add value to the July 2007 preclinical discovery deal with RNAi leader Alnylam. Under the agreement, Mirus will [...]

Will Roche Kill Independent Genentech?

Roche has offered to buy the 45% stake of Genentech it doesn’t already own with a $89/share, $43.7B (8.8% premium) offer.
The initial Roche/Genentech deal brokered in the 90’s has been key to Roche’s success in the last few years. Upon first blush, this deal seems a natural fit and a no-brainer for Roche but [...]

Shire Ponies Up For Jerini

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Shire and its well known acquisition strategy are at it again, this time buying Berlin-based, Jerini for $521.2M (a 71% premium).
The rationale for the deal was the addition of Firazyr, an orphan drug treatment for hereditary angioedema (HAE), which received a not approvable letter from the FDA in April but has an EU [...]

Sanofi Gets Into Generics Game

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Sanofi-Aventis plans to make a $2.57 billion (10% premium) offer for Czech generic drugmaker Zentiva, trumping a bid from financial group PPF. Sanofi’s move on Zentiva follows Daiichi Sankyo’s $4.6B offer for India’s top generic company, Ranbaxy.
Generic drug production has traditionally been shunned by large pharmaceutical companies but is now receiving increased interest [...]

Pfizer Waging Battle Over Ranbaxy??

 
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I was on a plane all day, headed to the BIO-LES seminar and didn’t get a chance to read the wire, so there is really no need to throw in my two cents at this point but the WSJ reported that Pfizer may be interested in topping the Daichii bid for Ranbaxy.  
Though [...]

Daiichi Sankyo Goes Generic with Ranbaxy Purchase

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The generic drug business is growing twice as fast as branded medicines so it is no wonder that J&J, Novartis (with the purchase of Hexal and Eon to form Sandoz) and now Daiichi Sankyo are interested.
Daiichi Sankyo announced today that they will buy a controlling interest (50.1%) in India’s Ranbaxy Laboratories for ~$4.6B, [...]

Ipsen Buys Into North America

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So how much does it cost for an EU pharmaceutical company to break into the North American market?  
Ipsen can answer that question in three deals and ~$450M.
First, Ipsen acquired the shares of Tercica they didn’t own.
 Second, they bought the US subsidiary of the UK based Vernalis and the rights to Apokyn (apomorphine)and [...]

Novartis Buys Protez For Superbug Defense

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Novartis AG strengthened its specialty medicines development portfolio by buying the private, Protez Pharmaceuticals, today for $100M upfront and the potential for up to $400M dependent on meeting certain developmental milestones.
PZ-601, the lead compound, is a broad-spectrum beta-lactam, for the potential treatment of bacterial infections including complicated skin and skin structure infections (cSSSI) [...]

BMS Acquires Kosan Biosciences for 233% Premium

Rumors about BMS being acquired by a larger drug maker have been floating around for some time now but today, BMS gets to play the big pocketbook.
BMS and Kosan announced that they have signed a merger agreement for $5.50 per share (a 233% premium over Kosan’s previous day [...]

Daichii To Buy U3 for $235M

(BioSpace) Daichii Sankyo bought German based U3 this morning for $235M (150M euro) and I think it’s a pretty good deal for Daichii. U3 is a mAb, receptor tyrosine kinase targeting company with a few candidates in preclinical studies (see below):

Product
Description
Product Type
Status

U3-1287 (AMG-888)

Receptor tyrosine kinase [...]