Word on the Street: Novartis May Purchase Cubist for $1.6 billion
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Rumors are rife that Novartis is going to purchase Lexington, MA-based Cubist for $1.6 billion. Wall Street analysts are speculating that Novartis may announce the deal as early as Monday.
Cubist manufactures Cubicin (daptomycin), one of only a handful of new antibiotics brought to market in the past 20 years that is effective against many infections caused by Gram-positive bacteria, most notably methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The company is developing new lipopeptide antibiotics similar to Cubicin and also has an active anti-viral drug discovery program.
Over the past 10 years, big pharma companies largely abandoned antibiotic research and placed all discovery efforts in the hands of only a few smaller public companies and startups. Cubist is the only independent biopharmaceutical company that successfully brought a new antibiotic to market.
Novartis’ possible acquisition of Cubist signals, that at least one major pharmaceutical company sees opportunities and upside in the antibiotic drug discovery market. Several years ago, Pfizer acquired another antibiotic discovery company, Vicuron (formerly Versicor) but to date the acquisition has not yielded any new antibiotics. While Novartis’ acquisition of Cubist is yet another sign of consolidation that is taking place in the life sciences sector, it may bolster new efforts in the antibacterial drug discovery area. Unlike Cubist, Novartis has enough money and marketing muscle to increase Cubin sales and develop some of the exciting new molecular entities in Cubist’s drug development pipeline.
Until next time…..
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!
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It’s official! Roche has secured more than 96 percent of shares in Genentech Inc, completing its $46.8 billion buyout of the U.S. biotech group. It now holds some 93 percent of outstanding Genentech shares, a further 3 percent are guaranteed to be delivered within the next three business days and it will integrate the U.S. biotech group as soon as possible.
Late last week, Roche raised the price of its hostile offer to buy out .jpg)
Merck announced today that it was buying Schering Plough, the Kenilworth-New Jersey based drug maker, for $41.1 billion. The deal comes only six weeks after Pfizer said that it would purchase NJ-based Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Superficially, the deal may make sense for the two struggling drug makers—they co-market the cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin and also have collaborations in the respiratory diseases area. Also, Schering Plough has the European rights to the anti-arthritis drug Remicade and its 2007 purchase of the Dutch biopharmaceutical company Organon Biosciences NV provides access to several potential biotechnology drugs. Nevertheless, the impending merger will ultimately result in job losses and higher unemployment in the state of New Jersey..gif)
In the wake of last week’s Pfizer-Wyeth M&A feeding frenzy, I suspect that most analysts were hoping that this week would be a little quieter. Unfortunately for many pharmaceutical company employees, this week may be shaping up to be almost as nerve-wracking as last week!.jpg)
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The ink hasn’t had time to try on the deal sheet and Pfizer already has announced what the impact of its acquisition of Wyeth will have on the combined company. Here’s what to expect: Pfizer will shed at least 19,000 jobs from it newly combined work force of 128,000 employees; it will slash its stock dividend by 50%; and it will take a $2.3 billion charge to settle a federal investigation over off label promotion of its former pain drug Bextra. .jpg)
I believe in free enterprise and that publicly-traded companies ought to be able to buy one another if a deal makes sense. In any other financial market, Pfizer’s impending acquisition of Wyeth would be a noteworthy event but not extraordinary. However, we are living in unprecedented and uncertain financial times and Pfizer’s possible purchase of Wyeth has serious implications for American taxpayers.
Pfizer's board of directors voted on Sunday evening to acquire Wyeth for $65 billion. While this may help to assuage some of Pfizer's short term financial problems, like the loss of Lipitor in 2011,the deal will not help the combined company in the long run. 
Pfizer is the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. It was able to garner that distinction by going on a decade-long buying spree that began in the mid 1990s. To date, Pfizer has acquired Warner Lambert, Pharmacia and a host of smaller specialty pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Despite these acquisitions, which yielded top selling blockbuster drugs like Lipitor and Celebrex, Pfizer’s stock has never performed up to analyst’s expectations. In fact, while it’s smaller and more nimble pharmaceutical competitor’s stock prices were soaring, Pfizer’s stock price was either flat or falling. While conventional wisdoms suggest that “bigger is always better” this has proven not to be the case when companies, like Pfizer, attempt to win greater market share through mergers and acquisition and also loss sight of their core business..jpg)
As reported yesterday by the 
According to a 
The consolidation trend in the US life sciences industry continues. Carlsbad, CA-based Invitrogen, a provider of cells, molecular and biochemical probes and reagents used in life sciences research,
When was the last time that you heard that a company which was acquiring another one was willing to pay employees bonuses to induce them to remain at the company until the acquisition was complete? Usually, acquisitions are followed by corporate right-sizing and job layoffs! Sometimes good things happen to good people!
Biogen IDEC, one of the world's largest and most profitable biotech companies, may be for sale. The company was approached last week by several pharmaceutical suitors and Carl Icahn the billionaire former corporate raider. Mr Icahn has been interested in getting into the biotechnology business in a big way ever since he donated a large sum of money to Princeton University (his alma mater) for a new molecular biology building. He currently owns substantial shares in a number of companies including Imclone, Biogen IDEC and others.
