Pfizer has one-upped the competition with a $14 billion bid for a cancer drugmaker
The Pfizer World Headquarters building in New York.Thomson Reuters
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Pfizer is scooping up the cancer drugmaker Medivation for $14 billion.
The deal values Medivation at$81.50 a share, a notable premium to the $52.50-a-share offer Sanofi had made for it earlier this year.
Medivation shares ended trading at $67.16 on Friday.
Sanofi went public with its $9.3 billion bid for the company in April. Medivation rejected that bid, but it wasn't long before it was fielding other offers and analysts were speculating about possible buyers, including reports that Pfizer — which in April terminated its merger with Allergan after the US Treasury released new rules — was in the mix.
"The addition of Medivation will strengthen Pfizer's Innovative Health business and accelerate its pathway to a leadership position in oncology, one of our key focus areas, which we believe will drive greater growth and scale of that business over the long-term," Pfizer CEO Ian Read said in a release.
Pfizer said in a call Monday that the deal wouldn't affect the company's timeline to decide whether or not to split into two separate companies, something Pfizer's been talking about doing for years. The decision will come no later than the end of 2016.
Medivation already has one drug on the market to treat prostate cancer. And its big appeal comes from an experimental breast-cancer treatment called talazoparib. It still hasn't been approved for use, but the drug also has potential as a treatment of cervical, lung, and ovarian cancers.
In a July conference call, Medivation talked up the value of talazoparib, saying it had the potential to be "best-in-class" among so-called PARP inhibitors — a new type of medicine that blocks a particular enzyme that is used by our cells to repair DNA so that tumors can't survive.
Medivation's shares surged in early trading, rising by almost 20% early on Monday.
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Medivation's shares surged in early trading, rising by almost 20% early on Monday.
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