AstraZeneca Agrees to Buy Alexion for $39 Billion -- 3rd Update
12 Dezember 2020 - 3:57PM
Dow Jones News
By Jenny Strasburg and Jonathan D. Rockoff
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.
AstraZeneca's said its cash-and-stock agreement amounts to $175
per Alexion share, based on the one-month average value of
AstraZeneca's U.S.-traded American depositary receipts. The offer
is split between $60 in cash and 2.1243 American depositary shares.
That represents a 40% premium over Alexion's one-month share-price
average, AstraZeneca said. Alexion's shares closed Friday at
$120.98.
The companies have been talking for several months, said
AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot. Dr. Soriot said that the
disruption should be minimal for AstraZeneca's work rolling out a
global Covid-19 vaccine, adding that for a deal this attractive,
"You do it when the opportunity arises."
He and AstraZeneca's chief financial officer, Marc Dunoyer, told
reporters on a call Saturday that AstraZeneca and Alexion don't
overlap a great deal geographically, and Alexion's roughly 3,000
employees will be fairly simple to integrate.
AstraZeneca expects to have regulatory approvals by the third
quarter, possibly sooner, by which time they will be well into the
vaccine rollout, the executives said. "Our belief is that by Q3 the
world won't have returned to total normalcy, but close enough," Dr.
Soriot said.
By agreeing to buy Alexion, AstraZeneca is aiming to diversify a
portfolio that had become heavily focused on cancer drugs and into
one of the pharmaceutical industry's most dynamic areas -- the
market for therapies for rare diseases.
Alexion is among the leading sellers of rare-disease drugs. Its
top-selling product, called Soliris, treats a rare blood disorder
known as paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria.
Rare-disease drugs are attractive to drugmakers because they
don't need large sales forces and can charge high prices that
health insurers are typically willing to pay because they only have
one or two members requiring the treatment.
Other big drugmakers have paid up to enter the rare-disease
drugs market. Most recently, in 2018, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.
agreed to buy Shire for $62 billion. In 2017, Johnson & Johnson
agreed to buy Actelion for $30 billion.
Still, Soliris's patent protection is waning, and the drug faces
potential competition that could undercut sales. In June, Alexion
reached a deal with Amgen Inc. to delay its launch of a copycat
drug until 2025.
In 2016, Alexion's chief executive and chief financial officer
were forced to step down during a company investigation into
improper sale and accounting practices. David Brennan, a former
AstraZeneca chief executive on Alexion's board, took over on an
interim basis.
Ludwig Hantson took the helm of Alexion in 2017.
The deal comes as AstraZeneca has suffered setbacks in its
Covid-19 vaccine development. It has faced criticism over
disclosures around an early clinical-trial dosing mistake and a
range of recent vaccine-effectiveness results that confused outside
researchers, some of whom called for more data before authorization
of the shot.
AstraZeneca executives said Saturday in a briefing with
reporters that the vaccine is on track to be available soon for
mass inoculations. Dr. Soriot said that will happen "over the next
few weeks" in some countries and in January in others.
He said the company's U.S. clinical trial, delayed earlier this
year while unexplained adverse reactions in volunteers were
investigated, is going well and should produce late-stage results
in January.
Write to Jenny Strasburg at jenny.strasburg@wsj.com and Jonathan
D. Rockoff at Jonathan.Rockoff@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 12, 2020 09:42 ET (14:42 GMT)
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