(Reuters) – Danish pharmaceutical group Lundbeck (LUN.CO) is one of the potential bidders for some of the older products worth in total $3 billion that British GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) is looking to divest, according to sources.
Lundbeck is reviewing a bid for products marketed in North America as it seeks to expand there, two sources told Reuters.
Shares in Lundbeck are traded 2.1 percent higher on Wednesday at 1045 GMT (0645 EDT) outperforming a 0.6 percent fall in the Danish benchmark index .OMXC20CAP.
Analysts made the following comments:
ANALYST SOREN LONTOFT HANSEN, SYDBANK
“Lundbeck could be looking at drugs that could complement its existing drug portfolio. We have seen that before, for example when the company bought Chelsea Therapeutics International, whose neurodrug Northera had just been approved in the United States.
“The patents expire on some of Lundbeck’s most significant products these years. The company has some of its own developed products as Selincro and Brintellix, and with the Japanese partner Otsuka it has Abilify Maintena. But it takes time to penetrate the market for these drugs, so I think Lundbeck is also looking for alternatives which can complement the existing pipeline, and where it makes sense for their salesmen also to have these drugs with them, when they visit customers”.
“Lundbeck has built a decent business in North America on drugs for some relatively rare diseases and they are still building on that what with Abilify Maintena and Brintellix”.
“There’s a giant potential on the U.S. market. It makes sense to use the existing sales force to take on a few more drugs. So it will probably be some drugs that complements some of Lundbeck’s existing drugs.”
(Reporting by Teis Jensen; editing by Sabina Zawadzki)
