Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc has approached Botox-maker Allergan PLC to discuss what could be the biggest takeover deal this year, the Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The healthcare sector has seen an unprecedented wave of deals since early last year, from large drugmakers buying up smaller rivals, to consolidation among makers of generic medicines and tie-ups between insurers.
A bid for Allergan, which has a market value of US$113 billion, would be Pfizer’s second attempt to acquire a European rival, following its unsuccessful courtship last year of Anglo-Swedish pharmaceuticals group AstraZeneca PLC.
After six months of negotiations, AstraZeneca rejected Pfizer’s final bid in May last year. The potential for lowering Pfizer’s tax bill by switching its headquarters from the US to the UK was touted by chief executive officer Ian Read as a key reason for the deal.
A takeover of Allergan could offer similar advantages given that the Botox-maker is based in lower-tax Dublin. A US attempt to crack down on such tax avoidance deals led to the collapse of AbbVie Inc’s bid to buy Shire PLC, but it is unclear whether those rule changes would preclude potential tax advantages from a Pfizer-Allergan deal.
“When you’re the size of Pfizer, an acquisition like this might be the only choice you have in order to be able to move the needle for sequential growth ... so the question now becomes, if not this, what, and if not now, when?” WBB Securities LLC’s analyst Stephen Brozak said.
Pfizer, which has a market value of about US$219 billion, is the largest US drugmaker.
Allergan would give Pfizer, whose revenues are expected to slide 3.3 percent this year, a boost in top-line growth. The Botox-maker’s revenue is seen increasing 39 percent this year, according to Thomson Reuters estimates.
The merger talks are in early stages, and might not yield an agreement, while other details are unclear, the Wall Street Journal said.
Pfizer last month paid US$15 billion to acquire US rival Hospira Inc. The US-based maker of such blockbuster drugs as Lipitor and Viagra was not immediately available for comment.
Allergan, which declined to comment, became the US’ third-largest generic drugmaker after combining with Actavis in March.
Allergan chief executive officer Brent Saunders has been eager to do deals, having first orchestrated the sale of Forest Laboratories Inc to Actavis, then using the latter to seal the US$66 billion purchase of Allergan.
Following the Actavis tie-up, Allergan sold its generic drugs business to Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd in July for US$40.5 billion in cash and stock.
In its first full quarter after the Actavis deal, Allergan reported second-quarter revenue of US$5.76 billion, led by US$632 million in sales of wrinkle blocker Botox. Other top-selling drugs include dry eye treatment Restasis and Alzheimer’s drug Namenda.
Pfizer recently reported third-quarter revenue of US$12.1 billion, including US$1.58 billion for its Prevnar pneumococcal vaccines and US$947 million for Lyrica.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group