Deal for Medivation Is the Latest In a Line of Similar Acquisitions -- WSJ

By Jonathan D. Rockoff 

Pfizer's $14 billion deal to buy Medivation and its prostate-cancer drug Xtandi is the latest in a long line of big pharmaceutical company acquisitions of smaller companies with prized assets. Sometimes, the big pharmaceutical companies do the deals to plug in the sales of already approved and big-selling drugs; other times, it is to acquire medicines in development that show strong potential. Here is a list of some other notable transactions from the past several years.

AbbVie-Pharmacyclics . Last year, AbbVie Inc. paid $21 billion for Pharmacyclics to obtain its blockbuster blood-cancer drug Imbruvica. AbbVie outbid rivals including Johnson & Johnson, which also sells Imbruvica, to reduce its reliance on the world's top-selling drug, rheumatoid arthritis therapy Humira. AbbVie reported net revenues of $820 million from Imbruvica during the first half of this year.

Gilead-Pharmasset. The $11 billion purchase of Pharmasset, considered a hefty sum at the time of the deal four years ago, may go down as one of the drug industry's most lucrative transactions. Gilead Sciences Inc. obtained a promising but still unapproved hepatitis C drug. That compound was named Sovaldi upon its subsequent approval and later included in a combination drug called Harvoni. That franchise has gone on to be a top industry moneymaker, notching $19.1 billion in sales last year. Their price tags, of $1,000 a day or more, has also generated criticism of Gilead and industry pricing in general.

Amgen-Onyx . Onyx was selling a multiple-myeloma drug named Kyprolis that Amgen Inc. sought in a $10.4 billion takeover in 2013. Amgen was one of the pioneering biotechs, famed for the cancer drugs that poured out from its labs, but those products were aging. Kyprolis sales, totaling $512 million last fiscal year, have given the company a boost.

Celgene-Receptos. Last August, cancer-drug company Celgene Corp. bought Receptos and its experimental multiple-sclerosis drug ozanimod for $7.2 billion. Celgene hopes the acquisition will help the company diversify beyond its franchise of multiple-myeloma drugs and into autoimmune diseases. Ozanimod is still under development.

Bristol-Medarex. Bristol-Myers Squibb & Co. took a big risk when it bought Medarex for $2.1 billion 2009. The partners had been chasing a longtime elusive goal of drug researchers: unlocking the body's immune system so it could fight cancer. The bet paid off. Now Bristol sells two such immunotherapies, Yervoy and Opdivo, and leads the market for the medicines that analysts expect will top $23 billion in 2020. Rivals, including Pfizer, are trying to catch up.

Merck-Cubist. Merck & Co. celebrated its $8.4 billion agreement in late 2014 to buy Cubist Pharmaceuticals and its antibiotic Cubicin. Cubicin generated nearly $1 billion in yearly sales, and it fit into Merck's expanding portfolio of antibiotics and other drugs given in hospitals. Yet just hours after the deal's announcement, a judge invalidated some key Cubicin patents. Late last year, Merck lost its appeal, which paves the way for Pfizer to sell a generic version of Cubicin as early as this year.

Write to Jonathan D. Rockoff at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 23, 2016 02:48 ET (06:48 GMT)

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