What’s Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Plan B if its Celgene deal falls through? BMS won’t say whether it has one at all. And the company may be more likely to need a backup plan than some industry-watchers think.
As Wolfe Research’s Tim Anderson pointed out in a note to clients, the company has so far skirted questions about how it would proceed without the $74 billion takeout, saying only that “their focus is on getting the Celgene deal done.”
“They gave no insights on the path forward under this alternative scenario,” Anderson wrote, noting that if the deal doesn’t happen, Bristol’s past “string-of-pearls” strategy, which focused on small acquisitions, may not be enough to take it into the future.
And the way he sees it, it might be time to think about alternatives. Activist investor Starboard Value has already started working to take down the merger, and top shareholder Wellington Management has come out against it, too.
Anderson and his colleagues are hearing from other investors that “there continues to be uneasiness about the merits of the transaction and what the combined company will be capable of delivering to shareholders.”
Other analysts, though, have said they still expect the deal to close as planned.
“Wellington, even combined with similarly positioned funds, lacks the votes to sway the deal outcome,” Atlantic Equities analysts wrote recently. And Starboard’s stake is even smaller.
Meanwhile, though BMS may not be focusing on different endings to the Celgene story, other biopharma companies might be. Anderson—who has long contended that Bristol’s I-O struggles could make it a takeout target—suspects that its “actions are in fact partly designed to prevent itself from being acquired.”
“Management stopped short of saying whether there has been any informal indication of interest in BMS by another party, which still leaves open a possible motive for the transaction,” he wrote, adding that “whether there was informal interest recently, or whether [the company] is merely anticipating this as a future risk, is not clear.”
Also unclear? Which company could—and would—swallow a drugmaker of Bristol’s size. Many of the best-equipped companies, including Pfizer and AbbVie, have come out against megadeals in recent weeks.
By Carly Helfand
Source: Fierce Pharma
CureVac and the University of Texas’s MD Anderson Cancer Center have announced a co-development and licensing agreement to develop novel messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based cancer vaccines. The strategic collaboration will focus on the development of differentiated cancer vaccine candidates in selected haematological and solid tumour indications with high unmet medical needs.
FUJIFILM Corporation is planning to invest $1.2 billion to expand the planned FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina, US. This news follows the organisation’s announcement of a $2 billion investment in the facility in March 2021. This additional financial boost totals the investment to over $3.2 billion, FUJIFILM confirmed.
Sanofi’s global restructuring and downsizing is now fully underway, with layoffs stretching to the company’s Belgian offices. Belgian newspaper De Tijd reports that 67 employees have been laid off at a site in Ghent and 32 jobs are on the chopping block at Sanofi’s Belgium HQ in Diegem.
