Last week’s post highlighted pharma deals that haven’t been working out due to rejected bids and stalled negotiations. On a more positive note, the past several months have also seen some successful acquisitions. This past week produced updates to some of Big Pharma’s pending pacts.

Update: Sanofi & Zentiva. Sanofi-Aventis this week upped its bid for Zentiva and agreed to buy the Czech generics firm for $2.6 billion. Zentiva’s board had previously rejected Sanofi’s offer of $2.4 billion, but unanimously approved the increased offer.

Update: BMS & ImClone. On Monday, Bristol-Myers Squibb raised its bid to $62 per share, the value increasing from about $4.5 billion to $4.7 billion, and said it intends to commence a tender offer. On Tuesday, Carl C. Icahn, ImClone’s chairman, called the increased offer “absurd” in a letter to James M. Cornelius, chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb.

On the horizon? There is speculation that Karo Bio, a Swedish firm with a novel cholesterol-fighting drug, could receive a buyout offer from a company like Pfizer or AstraZeneca, both of which are looking to boost their cardiovascular portfolios, according to a Bloomberg report and other posts around the web.

So far, so good. Teva’s acquisition of Barr is still in the works. The companies announced at the beginning of this month that, as expected, they received a request from the FTC for more information about the $7.5-billion deal. Teva and Barr still expect the transaction to be completed by the end of the year.

Recent Successful Deals
September 2008. Bayer HealthCare (Leverkusen, Germany) acquired DIREVO Biotech AG (Cologne, Germany) in a cash deal in a transaction valued at approximately $354 million. DIREVO Industrial Biotechnology GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of DIREVO Biotech AG, is not included in this transaction and has been sold in a separate deal to a group of financial investors.

Novartis (Basel) announced it holds 99.8% of the biotechnology company Speedel’s (Basel) currently outstanding shares following completion of a mandatory public tender offer, and a “squeeze out” procedure was initiated on Sept. 25 for the remaining shares. Novartis announced its takeover plans in July 2008. The total acquisition costs were estimated at $880 million.

In other September news, Solvay Pharmaceuticals (Brussels) won the bidding war against Gen-Probe for the biotechnology company Innogenetics (Gent, Belgium). This month, Solvay successfully acquired Innogenetics in a cash transaction valued at approximately $319 million. In June 2008, Gen-Probe topped Solvay’s original April 2008 offer, and in July 2008 Solvay responded by raising its bid to $319 million.

July 2008. The healthcare group Fresenius (Bad Homburg, Germany) agreed to acquire APP Pharmaceuticals (Schaumburg, IL), a pharmaceutical company focused on injectables, for a cash purchase price of $3.7 billion. APP will join Fresenius as part of its Fresenius Kabi division. Fresenius Kabi will gain access to the US injectable generics market through the acquisition.

Sanofi Aventis (Paris) announced that Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines business of Sanofi-Aventis, will acquire the vaccine maker Acambis (Cambridge, UK) for $546 million.

Also announced in July, Eli Lilly (Indianapolis, IN) will acquire the biotechnology company SGX Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA), in a cash transaction for approximately $64 million.

In early July, the specialty biopharmaceutical company Shire (Basingstoke, UK) announced it will acquire biotech company Jerini (Berlin, Germany), for approximately $516 million.

June 2008. Boehringer Ingelheim (Ingelheim, Germany) agreed to acquire the privately owned biotechnology company Actimis Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA) in a deal worth up to $515 million. The acquisition will occur through a structured buyout based on the achievement of several milestones of Actimis’ leading asthma compound “AP768.” If AP768, currently in Phase I clinical development, is advanced into a Phase III, Boehringer Ingelheim will own 100% of Actimis’ shares.

Early in the month, GlaxoSmithKline (London) acquired Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA) for approximately $720 million. Sirtris specializes in the field of sirtuins, a recently discovered class of biomolecules that is believed to be involved in the ageing process.

Other news in June involves Novartis, which agreed to acquire the biotechnology company Protez Pharmaceuticals (Malvern, PA) along with the rights in North America and Europe to PZ-601, a hospital antibiotic in clinical development, for up to $400 million.

On June 24, Roche (Basel) announced it successfully completed a tender offer begun in May 2008, which increased its stake in the biotechnology company Chugai Pharmaceutical (Tokyo, Japan) from 50.1% to 59.9%.

May 2008. Bristol-Myers Squibb agreed to purchase the biotechnology company Kosan Biosciences (Hayward, CA) for $5.50 per share in cash, an estimated value of about $190 million. Also announced this month, Daiichi Sankyo (Tokyo) will acquire the privately held biotechnology company U3 Pharma (Martinsried, Germany) for approximately $235 million.