It may soon get crowded at the bargaining table for a Medivation buyout. This morning Bloomberg reported that Amgen is now actively pondering a bid for the biotech. The news follows Sanofi’s $9.3 billion bid as well as Pfizer’s reported interest in making its own offer.
A bidding war would suit Medivation CEO David Hung perfectly. The biotech spurned Sanofi’s $52.50 per share offer and will now get to consider its defensive strategy now that Sanofi has threatened to go hostile and go after its board unless they get serious about negotiating a deal.
There’s no certainty that either Pfizer or Amgen will make an offer for a company that would deliver the prostate cancer drug Xtandi as well as an experimental PARP inhibitor. But every new report of added interest can only add to the pressure on Sanofi to increase its bid. And AstraZeneca as well as Novartis have also been rumored to be among the potential suitors.
Analysts have speculated that Medivation’s price could go all the way to $70 a share, which would provide a big premium for investors. For Hung, who captured the attention of the industry with high-dollar collaborations in cancer as well as Alzheimer’s, extracting the biggest price for the company’s stock could be his last big play at Medivation. A few well placed news stories can only help him on that quest.
By John Carroll
Source: Fierce Biotech
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