Big pharma Merck (MRK) agreed to buy antibiotic specialist Cubist Pharmaceuticals (CBST) Monday in a deal valued at $9.5 billion. Cubist soared 35% in the stock market today, while Merck dropped a fraction. Merck is acquiring Cubist for $102 a share in cash, yielding an equity value of $8.4 billion, plus $1.1 billion in net debt. Merck said the buyout should add more than $1 billion annually to its revenue base, which is currently about $43
On Friday, hospitals could get a new life-saving antibiotic, and investors could see the first step in the resuscitation of Cubist Pharmaceuticals. Just a couple of years ago Cubist (CBST) was an IBD 50 mainstay, riding the success of Cubicin, a treatment for deadly hospital-based infections. In summer of 2012, the company unveiled an ambitious five-year plan that involved doubling revenue by 2017 through the launch of four new products, which
Cubist Pharmaceuticals (CBST) reported good results from a late-stage trial of its new antibiotic Monday morning, sending Cubist stock gapping up 5.5% on the stock market today. The trial compared ceftolozane/tazobactam, known in the industry as tol/taz, to meropenem (sold by AstraZeneca (AZN) as Monan or Meronem) in patients with complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAI). The company said the trial met its primary endpoint of showing