Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced Monday that it has agreed to acquire Medivation in a $14 billion deal that would add significantly to its cancer pipeline.
The deal will add the drug Xtandi to Pfizer’s portfolio, a prostate cancer treatment that generated $2.2 billion in sales over the past four quarters. The drug has also generated criticism for its high price.
Medivation also has a promising experimental breast cancer drug called talazoparib and an immuno-oncology drug called pidilizumab in late-stage development.
“The proposed acquisition of Medivation is expected to immediately accelerate revenue growth and drive overall earnings growth potential for Pfizer,” said Ian Read, chairman and chief executive of Pfizer, in a statement.
Read added that the deal will accelerate the growth of Pfizer’s innovative cancer drug business, “one of our key focus areas, which we believe will drive greater growth and scale of that business over the long-term.”
A subsidiary of Pfizer will make the offer to buy Medivation for $81.50 a share, and the deal is expected to close in the third or fourth quarter of this year.
David Hung, founder and chief executive of Medivation called Pfizer the “ideal partner to extend the reach of our blockbuster Xtandi franchise and take our promising, late-stage assets – talazoparib and pidiluzimab – to their next stages of development so that they can be made available to patients as quickly as possible.”
Picture: Pfizer
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Carolyn Y. Johnson
