AstraZeneca Agrees to Buy Alexion for $39 Billion -- Update
12 Dezember 2020 - 2:57PM
Dow Jones News
By Jenny Strasburg
LONDON -- AstraZeneca PLC said it agreed to buy Boston-based
Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. for $39 billion in cash and stock, a
move that would bolster the British drug giant's footprint in
immunology and rare diseases.
The deal comes at a pivotal time for AstraZeneca, which is in
late-stage development of a leading Covid-19 vaccine developed in
partnership with the University of Oxford. The vaccine is being
reviewed by U.K. and European medicines regulators, and could be
authorized for emergency use in the U.K. within weeks, scientists
involved in it have said.
The company has embarked on one of the most ambitious efforts to
manufacture and distribute the vaccine among a handful of Western
pharmaceutical giants, assuming it gets the green light for its
shot. With the Alexion deal, it is now also pursuing one of the
biggest drug industry deals of the year.
AstraZeneca said Alexion will give it a greater scientific
presence in immunology, with a rare-disease unit based in Boston.
Directors of both companies have approved the acquisition, which
they expect to close in the third quarter of 2021.
AstraZeneca has reinvented itself in recent years as a
cancer-drug powerhouse. It had suffered years of shrinking revenue
as blockbusters in its portfolio were hit by generic competition
when patents expired.
(More to come)
Write to Jenny Strasburg at jenny.strasburg@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 12, 2020 08:42 ET (13:42 GMT)
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