The burst of M&A activity in the pharmaceuticals industry continued today, when AstraZeneca announced a $1.26 billion (£782.7 million) deal to buy US firm Ardea Biosciences, which is working on a new medicine to battle gout.
Astra, Britain’s second-biggest drugmaker, is facing a patent cliff, as lucrative blockbusters including antipsychotic Seroquel begin to face generic competition while several medicines in its pipeline have failed at late-stage trials.
Shareholders will hope the deal to buy California’s Ardea for $32 a share — 54% more than its closing share price on Friday — will bolster Astra’s pipeline prospects. Ardea’s lesinurad is currently in late-stage development as a potential treatment for the management of chronic gout, which almost 17 million people are expected to suffer from by 2019.
Investors representing 30% of Ardea shares have already agreed to back the deal.
David Brennan, AstraZeneca’s chief executive, said: “The Ardea team has done a great job developing lesinurad along with a promising next-generation gout programme. These compounds have real potential to benefit patients.”
Big pharma has spent the past few years digesting small biotechs in order to boost their drug development hopes.
Shares in AstraZeneca slipped 34.5p to 2832.5p.
