The recent announcement that Roche (RHHBY) will buy InterMune (ITMN) for $8.3 billion brought new life to M&A speculation in the biotech industry, which had been relatively neglected as the buzz focused on tax-inversion deals by biopharmaceutical companies. While IBD has no greater ability than anyone else to predict the future, here are four biotech stocks that have been named as possible targets on the Street, with stock-moving results.
InterMune stock vaulted 36% on the stock market today, a day after the biotech company agreed to be bought by Roche for $8.3 billion. The rumor mill had been grinding since Aug. 13, when InterMune (ITMN) hired financial advisers for a possible sale. The price comes to $74 a share, 38% above InterMune’s Friday closing price and 63% above its Aug. 12 closing price. At that time, Bloomberg reported that not only Roche (RHHBY) but Sanofi (SNY),
Biotech InterMune (ITMN) hit a three-year high on the stock market today after UBS lifted its price target for the company on bullish expectations for a drug launch. UBS analyst Andrew Peters wrote that he expects Esbriet to become the standard of care for the lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) once it is approved in the U.S. The drug is already sold in Europe, Canada, Japan and several other countries, but the FDA rejected