WIKIMEDIA, FBIThe deals keep getting bigger in the biopharmaceutical space. Israeli generic drugmaker Teva bid on Tuesday (April 21) to purchase rival Mylan, which is headquartered in the Netherlands, for a whopping $40 billion. The offer was made as Mylan awaited word from Perrigo, an Irish pharma company for which it bid $29 billion earlier this month. Perrigo rejected Mylan’s offer on Tuesday, and industry insiders suggested that Teva may need to boost its bid for Mylan if it expects to acquire the firm. “If they raise their bid, they will have more Mylan shareholders pressuring management to come to the table,” S&P Capital IQ analyst Jeffrey Loo told Reuters.

Teva’s offer may have been prompted by the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of a generic version of the company’s multiple sclerosis drug, the immunomodulator Copaxone, on Monday (April 20). Copaxone accounts for nearly half of...

For now, Teva seems to be courting Mylan in a way that belies the cutthroat mentality that usually attends corporate takeovers. “We have long respected Mylan’s business,” Teva’s president and chief executive Erez Vigodman said in a statement, “and we are confident that Mylan’s Board of Directors and stockholders will agree that our proposal represents a significantly more attractive alternative for Mylan and its stockholders than Mylan’s proposed acquisition of Perrigo.”

Teva officials predict that a deal with Mylan, which would produce more than $30 billion in revenues and $2 billion in cost savings, could be reached by the end of the year. But the firm will face regulatory and antitrust hurdles if and when the deal does go through.

Update (April 27): Mylan has rejected Teva’s $40 billion buyout offer, the Associated Press reported.

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