January 7, 2015
By Riley McDermid and Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
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.
One of the primary topics will be snap-on buying, said some sources Wednesday.
“The only real place they can find growth is through acquisition,” Jeff Stute, head of health-care investment banking at JP Morgan Chase & Co., told Bloomberg on Wednesday.
Bloomberg said that drugmakers saw a record $234 billion of acquisitions in 2014, three times the number completed in 2013
“2014 was clearly the year of the big deal,” Rich Jeanneret, Americas vice chair of transaction advisory services at EY in New York, told the news service. “I think that’s going to persist in 2015 because there’s much more confidence in the M&A ecosystem.”
Large companies will continue to look for ways to buy snap-on targets that have existing pipelines and technologies, said market watchers, including the always-hot oncology sector, where Pfizer paid $850 million in 2014 for the rights to Merck KGaA’s immunotherapy cancer drug.
“There’s a new norm in the larger companies in the industry of outsourcing innovation,” said Kevin Starr, co-founder and partner at Boston-based Third Rock Ventures, told Bloomberg.
“Oncology’s still the king of the hill and commands the broadest and deepest interest among buyers,” added Stute.
The question of how to pay the least tax possible, particularly after a bruising year when American lawmakers tightened efforts to move abroad to avoid taxation, will also come into play.
“Funds which have a lot of money are looking for more opportunities, and they’re going to look at the biotech and specialty pharma space,” Myles Clouston, Nasdaq’s senior director of advisory services, told Bloomberg.
The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index was up 34 percent at the end of 2014, a huge leap compared to the S&P 500 Index’s gain of only 11 percent.
“We are not hearing anything that would suggest a decrease in acquirers’ M&A appetites heading into 2015,” Joe Rosenberg, a Nasdaq biotech and health-care specialist, told Bloomberg.
The billion dollar question of the moment appears to be whether Pfizer Inc. 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.
Other possible acquisition targets for Pfizer have been UK-based GlaxoSmithKline , Dublin-based Actavis plc and New York-based Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. . Bristol-Myers is valued at $81 billion.
Neither a Bristol-Myers or AbbVie deal would offer Pfizer any tax-inversion benefits, with primary headquarters in the U.S. A deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb would help Pfizer in the oncology market, in which the company has expressed interest. AbbVie’s strongest product is the rheumatoid arthritis medication Humira, with sales projected to rise by 20 percent by 2020.
AbbVie has also recently received promising news for its hepatitis C virus treatment, VIEKIRAX + EXVIERA. The compound was granted positive opinions by the European Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). A final decision is expected in the first quarter of this year.
AbbVie also had plans for acquiring Dublin-based Shire PLC for $54 billion, but killed the deal after the U.S. Treasury Department changed its tax-inversion regulations. Analysts have speculated that potential alternate targets could include Cubist and NPS Pharmaceuticals .
Shire acquired a $1.64 billion break-up fee from AbbVie and recently arranged a $2.1 billion loan facility. Analysts have speculated that Shire may also be interested in Bedminster, N.J.-based NPS Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Shire focuses on neuroscience, rare diseases, GI and internal medicine. They are best known for ADHD medications and ulcerative colitis drugs.
BioSpace Temperature Poll
Could Pfizer Be Eyeing AbbVie? Analysts continue to speculate on possible acquisition targets for Pfizer. Again, in a news report last week, the speculation is that AbbVie could be a potential target. What do you think? BioSpace wants your opinion! Results will be published on Friday, Jan. 9.
