AbbVie Nears Deal to Buy Allergan for More Than $60 Billion--Update

By Cara Lombardo, Jonathan D. Rockoff and Dana Cimilluca 

AbbVie Inc. is nearing a deal to buy Allergan PLC for more than $60 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, as two big drugmakers bet a combination will deliver new sources of growth they have struggled to find on their own.

The takeover, worth $188 a share in cash and stock, is expected to be announced later Tuesday, the people said. The price, mainly to be paid in cash, represents a 45% premium over Allergan's closing share price Monday of $129.57. If not for a surge in the shares in recent days on expectations for a breakup of the company, the premium would be even bigger.

Buying Dublin-based Allergan would deliver a dominant position in the $8 billion-plus market for Botox and other beauty drugs, as well as a number of popular eye treatments, as AbbVie braces for the end of patent protection for the world's top-selling drug, Humira.

The companies' portfolios have some overlap in treatments for brain, women's-health, stomach and other disorders, though the combination would take AbbVie into the new realm of frown-line smoothing, eyelash lengthening and double-chin removal.

Allergan's nearly $16 billion in yearly revenue would also give AbbVie another source of cash to hunt for a new generation of products.

Lately, Wall Street has been clamoring for change at Allergan, with its shares trading at a fraction of their peak of more than $330 in the summer of 2015. Analysts have been saying the company could split into two pieces but few expected CEO Brent Saunders to pull off a sale, especially at such a lofty premium.

Write to Cara Lombardo at [e-mail], Jonathan D. Rockoff at [e-mail] and Dana Cimilluca at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 25, 2019 06:47 ET (10:47 GMT)

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