AbbVie Wins Bidding War for Cancer Drugmaker

The pharmaceutical firm beat out a host of potential suitors, Johnson & Johnson among them, to strike a $21 billion deal with Pharmacyclics.

| 1 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
1:00
Share

WIKIMEDIA, EPSOS.DENorth Chicago-based pharmaceutical company AbbVie has agreed to by Pharmacyclics, which makes a drug to treat blood cancers, for $21 billion. AbbVie announced the deal yesterday (March 4) in a statement. While industry analysts had pegged Johnson & Johnson (J&J) as the likely purchaser of Pharmacyclics, AbbVie outbid the big pharma firm by offering to pay $261.25 per share in cash and stock.

Pharmacyclics makes Imbruvica (ibrutinib), an anticancer drug that is showing promise in treating chronic lymphocytic leukemia and mantle cell leukemia and is currently being investigated for its ability to treat other B-cell cancers. Global sales of the drug are expected to reach $5.8 billion by 2020, according to consensus analyst estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters Cortellis.

“Imbruvica is not only complementary to AbbVie's oncology pipeline, it has demonstrated strong clinical efficacy across a broad range of hematologic malignancies,” AbbVie Chief Executive Richard Gonzalez said in the statement.

The deal is the first major acquisition for AbbVie since its $54 billion bid to buy Irish drugmaker Shire fell through as tightened US tax rules made such international mergers tougher. Although J&J seems to have lost out ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Keywords

Meet the Author

  • Bob Grant

    From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer.
Share
3D illustration of a gold lipid nanoparticle with pink nucleic acid inside of it. Purple and teal spikes stick out from the lipid bilayer representing polyethylene glycol.
February 2025, Issue 1

A Nanoparticle Delivery System for Gene Therapy

A reimagined lipid vehicle for nucleic acids could overcome the limitations of current vectors.

View this Issue
Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Lonza
An illustration of animal and tree silhouettes.

From Water Bears to Grizzly Bears: Unusual Animal Models

Taconic Biosciences
Sex Differences in Neurological Research

Sex Differences in Neurological Research

bit.bio logo
New Frontiers in Vaccine Development

New Frontiers in Vaccine Development

Sino

Products

Tecan Logo

Tecan introduces Veya: bringing digital, scalable automation to labs worldwide

Explore a Concise Guide to Optimizing Viral Transduction

A Visual Guide to Lentiviral Gene Delivery

Takara Bio
Inventia Life Science

Inventia Life Science Launches RASTRUM™ Allegro to Revolutionize High-Throughput 3D Cell Culture for Drug Discovery and Disease Research

An illustration of differently shaped viruses.

Detecting Novel Viruses Using a Comprehensive Enrichment Panel

Twist Bio