New York: US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer yesterday announced that it will acquire Medivation for about $14 billion, besting Sanofi and other large drug companies that had sought the biotech firm’s lucrative cancer treatments.
The all-cash deal brings Pfizer the hit medication Xtandi, which generated $2.2bn in revenues over the last year in treating advanced metastatic prostate cancer.
The transaction, agreed by both companyies’ boards, will also bring to Pfizer other late-stage drugs under development at San Francisco-based Medivation.
Medivation has been working with Japanese company Astellas to develop other applications for Xtandi, including for breast cancer and the common liver cancer hepatocellular carcinoma.
“The proposed acquisition of Medivation is expected to immediately accelerate revenue growth and drive overall earnings growth potential for Pfizer,” said Pfizer chairman and chief executive Ian Read.
Medivation founder and CEO David Hugh called Pfizer “the ideal partner to extend the reach of our blockbuster Xtandi franchise and take our promising, late-stage assets – talazoparib and pidiluzimab – to their next stages of development.”
The transaction appeared to end a contest for Medivation among the world’s top drugmakers. France’s Sanofi launched the frenzy with a $9.3bn bid in April, which was turned down.
Sanofi raised its offer to $10bn, and threatened a hostile takeover campaign, but was again turned down by Medivation in July, which called the a deal “not in the best interests” of its shareholders.
But Sanofi remained in the game at that point, when Medivation agreed to share confidential data with the French company, indicating it thought that would demonstrate it was worth significantly more.
At least one other potential suitor, Amgen, also had an agreement to review Medivation’s data. Others reportedly eying the company included Gilead and Celgene.
The purchase comes on the heels of Pfizer’s $5.2bn acquisition in May of California biotech company Anacor Pharmaceuticals, a specialist in eczema treatment.
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