Amgen Ponies Up $1.16B to Buy Micromet for Its mAb Technology
Firms have been in a discovery partnership since July 2011.
Amgen and Micromet entered into a definitive agreement for Amgen to acquire Micromet for roughly $1.16 billion. The $11 per share cash offer has been approved by both the Amgen and Micromet boards of directors. The deal represents a 33% premium to Micromet’s $8.27 closing price yesterday. Today, Micromet’s share price has jumped to $10.93 in early morning trading.
Amgen’s decision to buy Micromet outright comes some six months a...
Merck’s new label for Vytorin disappoints the analysts
The FDA approved a label change that recognizes how Vytorin can prevent heart problems among chronic kidney disease patients, but didn't specifically give it an approval for that indication. Now Merck is left with a label that opens the door to discussing the use of its drug with doctors, but can't actually market it for that purpose.
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Novartis expects lower 2012 margin, despite cost cuts
Want a perspective on Novartis' latest results? Pick one. From the glass-half-full point of view, you could say that the Swiss drugmaker's Q4 sales are up 4%, to $14.8 billion, partly because of strong sales of newer meds such as the eye drug Lucentis and cancer treatment Tasigna, and full-year sales grew even more, by 16%. You could say that the Alcon ($ACL) purchase is paying off, as strong growth there helped to buoy the numbers. You could point to the fact that the company hiked its dividend...
Reps get $99M settlement in Novartis OT case
Rack up another win for pharma sales reps seeking overtime pay. Novartis has agreed to pay $99 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that's been slogging its way through the courts since 2006. Now covering more than 7,000 plaintiffs, the lawsuit claims reps don't qualify as "outside sales" employees, and thus aren't exempt from overtime pay.
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BioLineRx shares pop on hep C pact, raising temps in an overheated field
In yet another sign that hepatitis C is becoming one of the most overheated fields in drug development, Israel's BioLineRx ($BLRX) saw its shares shoot up after it struck an early-stage licensing deal for a new therapeutic designed to eventually become part of a future cocktail remedy. And Bloomberg helped feed the speculation with a story noting that the market buzz indicated that the biotech had become a much more attractive takeover target now that it has a hep C program to boast about.
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UPDATED: Illumina soars as Roche’s hostile bid highlights two hot trends
Highlighting two hot trends in biopharma today--an avid interest in bolt-on acquisitions and a love of targeted therapeutics--Roche has gone public with a $5.7 billion hostile takeover bid for San Diego-based Illumina, a gene sequencing outfit the Big Pharma company clearly sees as a ticket to the front of the personalized medicine parade.
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