A good post from the swamp: seek the light T
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seek the light Tuesday, 01/08/19 11:16:54 AM
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Gilead, Pfizer Execs Suggest Even More Pharma M&A Is on Way
By Riley Griffin
January 7, 2019, 2:27 PM CST
Updated on January 7, 2019, 7:44 PM CST
Drugmakers talk deals as investment conference stirs chatt
Comments follow cancer-drug deals by Bristol-Myers, Eli Lilly
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U.S. drugmakers are showing a new appetite for deals after saying for months that they were focused mainly on existing products.
Eli Lilly & Co. said Monday it will acquire Loxo Oncology Inc. for about $8 billion in cash. The announcement came just days after Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Celgene Corp. announced a $74 billion cash-and-stock deal, the biggest pharma deal ever.
Now some of their rivals want to get in on the action.
“First and foremost, we’re focused on M&A,” Gilead Sciences Inc. Chief Financial Officer Robin Washington said Monday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. Washington noted the company may also pay down some of its debt and weigh share buybacks. But mergers will be the biotech’s “primary focus,” she said.
Pfizer Inc. also said it would include acquisitions among its growth options. Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said the company was interested in picking up mid- and late-stage assets that it could develop and add to its existing pipeline.
“We do have the ability because of our balance sheet to do virtually any deal that one can think of in this industry,” Bourla said at the conference.
Pfizer Strategy
For Pfizer, any large new deal would represent a strategy reversal. When the pharma giant announced in October that Bourla would succeed Ian Read as CEO, the move symbolized the company’s shift toward emphasizing its internal pipeline efforts over a larger merger or acquisition. Pfizer grew to become the largest U.S. drugmaker in part by snapping up companies. In 2016, it acquired at least eight companies or product lines, including Medivation Inc. for $14 billion.
Pfizer also said that while it has the cash for a transaction, it needs to be cautious.
“I don’t want a destructive deal,” Bourla said.
Some editing done by me.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-...on-the-way