"If you make a mistake and get all tangled up, you just tango on."
- Col. Frank Slade, Scent of a Woman
There has been a lot of dancing going on in the industry the past few weeks as suitors have tried to woo partners - welcomed or not. LIke most things in life, we've ended up with winners and losers - and in some cases the game like the tango goes on.
Teva came out the big winner in the race to buy Ratiopharm, Germany's 2nd largest generics manufacturer as captured in the BioJobBlog. Pfizer, who many thought would come out on top, ultimately lost out on this deal. With the acquisition, Teva will assume role as leading generic manufacturer in Europe and will become the 6th largest worldwide. Ratiopharm has a better position in biosimilars and will help it to build its interests in this up and coming market. The Icelandic group Actavis was also left cooling its heels beside the dance floor.
The Tango appears to be a pretty intimate dance, for one less intimate let''s turn to the gyrations between Japan's Astellas and OSI Pharmaceuticals. As reported in Fierce Biotech, now that the OSI board has spurned Astellas unwanted $3.5 B takeover bid, Astellas has raised the stakes by nominating its own independent board to become new voting (and then dance partners). Not to be outdone, OSI indicates it has partners of its own among BIG Pharma also itching to come to the Dance. Money will be the ultimate decision-maker with regard to when this dance will stop.
ImmunoGen investors are anxious to see Roche fill out its dance card by acquiring the mid-sized biotech, purportedly to gain ImmunoGen's T-DM1as a further addition to its burgeoning pipeline. T-DM1 is an ADC that chemically links Herceptin to a high potent toxin (See several ADC posts on this blog site) for the treatment of breast cancer. Seeking Alpha reported that news of this potential pairing resulted in a rally of IMGN's stock price. Roche CEO Severin Schwan stated that they were not interested in any more large targets as they diluted value, on the other hand mid-sized dance partners (like ImmunoGen & its TAP technology) are just right. One gets the impression that Roche knows its way around the dance floor.
Nice post Bruce! Reporting the facts by incorporating a theme made for interesting reading.
Posted by: Pharma Conduct Guy | 03/20/2010 at 09:21 AM