The American pharmaceutical industry is bubbly. The Californian group Amgen would be about to rake in shares of compatriot Onyx Pharmaceuticals at a price of 125 dollars per share, for a total of 10 billion dollars (7,5 billion euros). This was reported by the French economic newspaper Les Echos.
If successful, the deal, which requires approval from the board of directors of each of the two companies, would be the fifth largest merger in the biotech sector.
The acquisition of Onyx would allow Amgen to expand the range of products for oncology. That way, Californians would secure full rights to Kyprolis, a treatment for multiple myeloma. Analysts, in this case, estimate a potential turnover of more than 2 billion dollars a year and more than 3 by 2021.
The move would also allow Amgen to receive a portion of the proceeds from Nexavar, a kidney and liver cancer treatment that Onyx shares with Bayer, and 20 percent royalties on the colon cancer drug Stivarga. . Also at stake are future royalties for experimental breast cancer treatments under development with Pfizer.
Amgen has been targeting Onyx for months. It had offered $120 a share in June, but the offer was judged too underpriced. Even big names in the sector such as AstraZeneca, Pfizer or Novartis had expressed interest in the acquisition, according to what was reported by Bloomberg.
The deal would be Amgen's largest since its $16,8 billion acquisition of Immunex in 2001.
The biotech sector is not new to these maneuvers. Since August 2010, 62 deals totaling at least $50 million have been completed, according to Bloomberg data.
