After six months or so of talks, Big Pharmas Shire and Baxalta early Monday announced a merger, valued near $32 billion, that they said would create the No. 1 company in drugs to treat rare diseases. Ireland-based Shire (SHPG) will pay Baxalta (BXLT) shareholders $18 in cash and 0.1482 of a Shire ADS (American Depositary Share) per share owned. They said that comes to $45.57 per Baxalta share, based on Friday’s closing price. But
Drugmaker Baxalta (BXLT) was trading up Monday, against a tide of broad stock market declines, as it inked an immuno-oncology deal and was rumored to be close to a sale to Shire (SHPG). Baxalta said that it had agreed to pay privately held Symphogen $175 million upfront for option rights to six therapies that Symphogen is developing, which target checkpoints in cancer cells that inhibit the immune system’s ability to fight them. The principle of
The last couple weeks on the market have been punishing for formerly highflying drug and device stocks. But one common side effect of lower valuations is more buyouts, which fanned a fair bit of Wall Street chatter and speculation this week. Here are the three getting the most attention. The most likely to be true: on Friday afternoon, Bloomberg reported that Baxalta (BXLT), the recently spun-off biopharma arm of Baxter International (BAX), is