Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Wanna Buy A Biotech?

http://www.forbes.com/leadership/forbes/2008/0505/044.html

[Ex-US companies are showing a lot more interest than are US companies—the weakness of the US dollar is clearly playing a role. (The date of this blurb refers to the printed edition of Forbes that is already out.)]

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By Matthew Herper
05.05.08

In early April Japanese drugmaker Takeda spent $9 billion to buy Millennium Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, Mass. company that sells the anticancer injection Velcade. It's the biggest such buy ever for a Japanese drugmaker and a sign of things to come. The weak dollar, combined with sagging biotech stock prices, has led foreign drugmakers to go on a shopping spree.

Some $80 billion was spent buying out health care technology companies over the past 12 months—60% of it by foreign acquirers, according to FactSet MergerStat. London's AstraZeneca paid $15 billion for Gaithersburg, Md.'s MedImmune, for example. The biggest purchases by a U.S. drug firm were puny: Pfizer recently spent $200 million apiece on two biotech acquisitions.

What U.S. companies could be acquired next?
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