January 9, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
The results of BioSpace’s first Biotech Temperature Poll are in and the masses have spoken: Most of the respondents polled said they believe Pfizer will take another bite at the AbbVie apple in 2015, bidding for the smaller drugmaker again in a deal they estimated to be over $120 billion.
When asked if Pfizer will bid again for AbbVie in 2015, 64 percent of respondents said yes, while 36 percent said no. If Pfizer does buy AbbVie, 59 percent said they thought the bid would be over $120 billion, while 41 percent said it would be lower than that amount—a contrast that could see Pfizer paying only what it originally bid last year.
Perhaps most striking? A whopping 74 percent of respondents said that AbbVie will actively resist any attempts at Pfizer to acquire the company, a sign that the extended speculation surrounding the deal has convinced many AbbVie simply isn’t interested.
The majority of the respondents were from the United States, with 79 percent of the 233 participants based in America. Three percent hailed from the United Kingdom, while the rest hailed from a host of countries including Puerto Rico, The Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Singapore, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, Uruguay, Portugal, Poland, Japan and the Czech Republic. Three percent of respondents declined to identify their country of domicile.
For state’s, California led the pack, with 18 percent of the poll’s respondents based in that state. Illinois followed with 15 percent, then New York at 11 and Massachusetts at 8 percent. The rest were distributed throughout the U.S.
Speculation about who in Big Pharma could go shopping in 2015 is continuing to mount, after a record year for acquisitions in the biotech sector has industry players wondering if large companies like Pfizer and Actavis plc will be stepping up buying activity in the next few months.
Analysts, bankers, venture capitalists and much of Wall Street is continuing to vet possible acquisition scenarios ahead of next week’s JP Morgan’s annual health-care conference in San Francisco, where over 300 companies like Pfizer, Roche , AbbVie and Merck will be gathering to present clinical data and talk deals.
The billion dollar question of the moment appears to be whether Pfizer will take another run at acquiring Chicago-based AbbVie now that it’s “cooling off” period has ended.
Ever since Pfizer’s May 2014 bid worth $119 billion for British company AstraZeneca fell apart, rumors have swirled over a possible replacement target. Pfizer’s interest in AstraZeneca was at least partly due to its tax domicile in the U.K., which would have cut Pfizer’s tax load. But changes in U.S. tax policy regarding so-called “tax inversion deals” have made these types of acquisitions less worthwhile.
In October Pfizer announced a stock repurchase plan of $11 billion in conjunction with a previous $1.3 billion share repurchase program. Analysts suggested that this was an attempt to strengthen the company’s stock value. Pfizer also has a number of patents ending, which will make the company more vulnerable to inexpensive generics.
