Sanofi planing to acquire Shantha Biotech

Shantha Biotech is again in the market this time not for big companies looking for stakes but now the news is that Sanofi-Aventis is planning to acquire Shantha Biotech in a deal which is worth $748 Million. This deal will help out Sanofi-Aventis to expand its vaccine line of business in emerging markets as Shantha has its presence throughout Pacific, Africa and Latin America, and Sanofi is keen in developing its portfolio for vaccines for diseases which has afflicted these regions. These diseases include cholera, diphtheria and tetanus. As of now Shantha biotech is expected to generate revenue worth $90 Million by this year and has strong pipeline for vaccines which include vaccines for rotavirus, conjugated typhoid and human papillomavirus (HPV)……GSK is going to have good lot of money in its pocket as recently it had acquired 61% stakes in Shantha Biotech

Bristol Mayer Squibb first move in M&A this year...........................

After Big Daddies like Pfizer, Merck and GSK’s billion dollar Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)....I was awaiting for news from BMS (Bristol Mayer Squibb). For sometime news was that BMS has cash flow for around 4 Billion and was planning to acquire some company by this summer, Earlier the news was that BMS has interest in Cougar Biotechnology which was later acquired by Johnson and Johnson for $1 Billion and then today Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. said it is buying out Medarex Inc. for $2.4 billion for filling its pipeline of experimental biological drugs and this deal will provide Bristol-Myers full ownership of the skin cancer drug ipilimumab, which it has jointly developed with Medarex.

Derma Next target..........................

The world dermatological market generated total sales revenues of over $20 Billion last year. Over the past few months there have been many M&A happening in this segment. Firstly the news was of GlaxoSmithKline acquisition of Stiefel Laboratories, for $2.9 billion in cash and secondly one of the major derma player Graceway pharmaceuticals a portfolio company of GTCR Golder Rauner has entered into an Acquisition and License Agreement with Pfizer by which the former will be acquiring worldwide commercial rights for three investigational dermatological molecules from Pfizer. Out of the three , two are used for treatment of oily skin and acne - an early stage Stearoyl CoA Desaturase 1 (SCD1) Inhibitor and a Cholesterol-Acyltransferase (ACAT) Inhibitor, both of which are in Phase II clinical trials and the last one is an Activin-Like Kinase 5 (ALK-5) Inhibitor, currently in early pre-clinical development stage.

Pfizer league of Top3 for cancer therapy by 2018

According to WHO report cancer will lead to death of more than 11.4 million people globally by year 2030 and some market reports state that revenue in this segment has crossed over to 11% from previous year which is worth $50 Billion.

At present Roche is market leader for cancer treatment globally, with a market share of 34.9% (equivalent to $13 Billion sales) in 2007, some other major players include Amgen, Sanofi-Aventis, Merck KgaA, Novartis, Schering-Plough and Eli Lilly.


Currently Pfizer is ranked in seventh position in cancer drug segment with annual sales of around $2.5 Billion, According to some sources it is said that Pfizer is planning to position itself in Top 3 by year 2018 as from some years Pfizer has started spending around 20 per cent of its annual research budget for developing novel cancer therapies and now it has around 20+ drugs in its cancer treatment pipeline out of which 8 are in Phase II clinical trials and 13 in Phase I clinical trials.

Big Pharma's hunting the generics.......................

Big pharma daddy's pipeline is drying up in the coming decades and beacuse of generic competion many large pharmaceuticals are loosing into their profit margins, so the stratergy both GSK and Pfizer are following is that they atr activeky hunting out for good profitable generic companies in the emerging market.

for sometime around GSK has been making headlines with many smaller and medium size generic and bio similar acquisition and now pfizer is rolling uo its sleeves and has started its stratergia acquisitions in the emerging markets such as Turkey in Middle east. Some reports have stated that Pfizer has announced that it wants to have generic drugs revenue to be more than 3 Biollion by year 2012.

Nycomed Big Move .................................

Nycomed is going for a big move it is planning to acquire Solvay pharmaceutical, this deal will boost Nycomed sales to more than $9 Billion and will help Nycomed to diversify their portfolio in gastrointestinal, CNS, and cardiac areas.

Nycomed after this deal can penetrate its operations in Europe and in the emerging markets such as India. Some reports say that Nycomed which is controlled by Nordic Capital and Credit Suisse Group AG is interested in selling its shares with Initial public offering later this year as IPO will help them to repay their investors and this deal will also help them move into league of bigger and diversified pharmaceutical company.

Japanese pharma on M&A move ............................

After Ranbaxy was acquired by Daichii Sankyo last year than this year again at perhaps same time another Japanese company Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical bought Miami-based Noven Pharmaceutical for $430 million. Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical is interested in expanding in the U.S., Hisamitsu agreed to pay $16.50 a share, a 38 percent premium on the company's 50-day close. Hisamitsu plans to make the company with specialization in hormone therapies to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Japanese firm, Today’s headline is that one more Japanese firm and Nycomed are in the early second round of an auction for all of Solvay's pharmaceuticals business.....this time we have Japanese in race with US and UK based companies in global M&A.

US Senate vote........for Biologicals

As mentioned by me in my earlier blog that Senator Ted kennedy wanted 13.5 years of IP protection for biological, everyone was waiting for this amendment. Yesterday the US senate Health, Education, Labour and Pensions Committee approved an amendment that will be protecting biotech innovator companies from bio similar competition for 12 years. The voting favoured--the biotech industry with a big win which was struggling to gain a long period of marketing protection.

The 12 years of data exclusivity will establish reasonable period and will ensure continuation of biomedical innovation and will provide the benefits of competition," said BIO President Jim Greenwood.