AbbVie Agrees to Buy Stemcentrx, Reports Jump in Earnings

AbbVie Inc. agreed to acquire Stemcentrx in a roughly $5.8 billion cash-and-stock deal that expands its pipeline of cancer treatments.

With the acquisition, which includes additional potential milestone payments of as much as $4 billion, AbbVie gains Semcentrx's Rova-T lung cancer treatment, a biomarker-specific therapy that is derived from cancer stem cells. Rova-T is being studied as a third-line treatment in patients with biomarker-specific therapy that is derived from cancer stem cells

AbbVie shares fell 2.2% to $59.34 in recent premarket trading, as the company also reported that its first-quarter earnings rose 32% in the latest quarter.

AbbVie said the deal includes $2 billion in cash, with the remainder of the transaction in stock. AbbVie said it plans an accelerated buyback of as much as $4 billion of its shares when the deal closes, which is expected in the current quarter.

It expects the deal to shave 20 cents a share from its 2016 per-share earnings and begin to boost its per-share results starting in 2020. AbbVie updated its 2016 per-share earnings estimate to $4.62 to $4.82, from its previous estimate for $4.90 to $5.10, to reflect the deal's impact.

AbbVie is facing a looming threat of competition for the arthritis treatment Humira. The company's hepatitis C drug, Viekira Pak, faces added competition in a market since Merck & Co.'s new hepatitis C treatment won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval this year.

U.S. sales of Viekira Pak have been soft since being introduced in 2014 despite a booming market for new hepatitis C medications.

Over all, AbbVie reported a quarterly profit of $1.35 billion, or 83 cents a share, up from $1.02 billion, or 63 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, per-share earnings rose to $1.15 from 94 cents. The company expected adjusted per-share earnings of $1.13 to $1.15.

Revenue increased 18% to $5.96 billion. On an operational basis, which excludes currency impacts, revenue improved 22%. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected $5.97 billion.

Write to Tess Stynes at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 28, 2016 08:35 ET (12:35 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.