(Reuters) – Merck has cleared a major anti-trust hurdle to its planned $17 billion (11 billion pound) acquisition of Sigma-Aldrich with the latter’s agreed sale of assets to Honeywell , the German drugmaker said on Tuesday.
Merck said U.S. life science company Sigma-Aldrich would sell parts of its solvents and inorganics business in Europe to industrial group Honeywell, which said separately it would pay about 105 million euros ($119 million) for the assets.
“This is another key step towards completing the acquisition of Sigma-Aldrich,” Merck executive board member Bernd Reckmann said in a statement on Tuesday.
Merck said it still expected to close the acquisition of Sigma-Aldrich, its biggest takeover, by the end of November.
The European Commission has to approve the asset sale to Honeywell in order for Merck to close the bigger transaction.
Merck aims to boost its lab-supplies business with the all-cash deal which was agreed more than a year ago.
(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; editing by Jason Neely)
Airnov provides critical healthcare industries with high-quality, controlled atmosphere packaging, to protect their products from moisture and oxygen. The business has manufacturing facilities in the USA, France, China and India and employs around 700 people.
Takeda of Japan has partnered with Hong Kong-based Hutchmed, gaining the commercial rights to colorectal cancer drug fruquintinib outside of China for $400 million up front, plus $730 million in potential milestone payments. Takeda also will help develop fruquintinib, which can be applied to subtypes of refractory metastatic colorectal cancer, regardless of biomarker status, the companies said.
On April 3, Scangos, who’s been chief executive officer at Vir since the start of 2017, will hand over the reins to Marianne De Backer, Ph.D. De Backer comes over from Bayer, where she currently heads up pharmaceutical strategy, business development and licensing. Alongside her CEO appointment, De Backer is set to join Vir’s board of directors, the company said Wednesday.