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Medivation Rejects Sanofi’s Buyout Bid; Sanofi ‘Remains Committed’

Biopharma firm Medivation ( MDVN ) rejected a $9.3 billion buyout proposal from big French pharma Sanofi ( SNY ) Friday morning, saying the offer undervalues the company. Medivation’s board unanimously voted against Sanofi’s bid of $52.50 a share in cash, which Sanofi first made by private letter on April 15 but made public on Thursday when it failed to get a response. Although that was around where Medivation was trading at the time, Sanofi said the stock has been pushed up lately by buyout rumors (including a report that AstraZeneca ( AZN ) is also interested), and that its offer is 50% higher than Medivation stock’s average price over the two months before the rumors surfaced. Medivation founder and CEO David Hung, however, claimed the price was unreasonably low due to the broad sell-off in drug stocks over the last eight months. “Sanofi’s opportunistically-timed proposal, which comes during a period of significant market dislocation, and prior to several important near-term events for the company, is designed to seize for Sanofi value that rightly belongs to our stockholders,” Hung said in a statement. Medivation stock bottomed at 26.41 on Feb. 9, a 63% drop from its then-52-week high set the previous March. In early trading on the stock market today , Medivation stock was down a fraction, near 56. Sanofi issued a brief response Friday promising to press on. “While to date Medivation has chosen not to enter into discussions regarding this value-creating transaction, Sanofi remains committed to the combination and looks forward to engaging directly with Medivation shareholders with regard to our proposal,” it said. Sanofi stock was down 4% in early trading Friday, near 41.

Medical M&A Rules The Day As Abbott, AbbVie Make Buys, Sanofi Bids

Big money was moving in the medical field Thursday as three giant companies announced — or attempted — multibillion-dollar buyouts. Abbott Laboratories ( ABT ) announced an agreement to acquire fellow cardiac-device maker  St. Jude Medical ( STJ ) in a deal worth $25 billion. Meanwhile,  AbbVie ( ABBV ), which used to be Abbott’s biopharma division before it was spun out, agreed to buy biotech Stemcentrx, for $5.8 billion upfront and up to $4 billion in milestone payments. Another cancer-focused biotech,  Medivation ( MDVN ) confirmed that it had received an unsolicited $9.3 billion bid from big pharma Sanofi ( SNY ) after weeks of rumors. Abbott agreed to pay $46.75 plus 0.8708 Abbott share for every St. Jude share. Based on Abbott’s five-day average share price, the deal valued St. Jude stock at $85 apiece. Abbott said the deal will add 21 cents to its EPS next year and 28 cents the following year. It expects to save $500 million in costs from the combination by 2020. Abbott will also assume or refinance St. Jude’s $5.7 billion in debt. The move will greatly enlarge Abbott’s cardiovascular device business, which now represents 19% of its revenue. “St. Jude Medical’s strong positions in heart failure devices, atrial fibrillation and cardiac rhythm management complement Abbott’s leading positions in coronary intervention and transcatheter mitral repair,” Abbott said in a press release. “Together, the company will compete in nearly every area of the cardiovascular market and hold the No. 1 or No. 2 positions across large and high-growth cardiovascular device markets.” Leerink analyst Danielle Antalffy agreed. St. Jude’s flat-to-negative sales growth over the last few years picked up to 8% in Q1, and she wrote in a research note that it’s set up to continue, while Abbott looked to be growing only in the low single digits. Nonetheless, Abbott’s share fell 7.8% to close at 40.42, while St. Jude’s rose 25.6% to 77.79. IBD’s Take: How healthy is Abbott  Labs’ stock? Find out at IBD Stock Checkup AbbVie, Sanofi Look To Expand Their Drug Pipelines AbbVie and Sanofi, meanwhile, are both big pharmas looking to fill out their pipelines with innovative drugs as their lead products face slowdowns. AbbVie’s immunology drug Humira is one of the best-selling drugs in the world, but it patents could start expiring inside of five years. Sanofi has had to scale back expectations for its diabetes franchise as the increasingly competitive space has pushed down prices. Stemcentrx’s lead late-stage asset is called rovalpituzumab tesirine (Rova-T), and it’s already in registrational trials for small-cell lung cancer. AbbVie says that it will pay $2 billion of the $5.8 billion purchase price in cash and the rest in stock. Stemcentrx will also receive up to $4 billion in cash milestone payments if the drug successfully clears its regulatory and development hurdles. In the meantime, however, it will be a financial drain. “AbbVie expects this transaction to be approximately (20 cents) dilutive to our ongoing earnings per share in 2016, with accretion beginning in 2020,” the company said in its announcement, lowering its 2016 EPS guidance to $4.62 from $4.82. Meanwhile, AbbVie early Thursday reported Q1 earnings that beat Wall Street estimates while falling a tad short on revenue. AbbVie said that it earned $1.15 per share minus items in Q1, up 22% and two cents better than analysts expected, on $5.958 billion in sales, up 18%. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected $5.966 billion. Global Humira sales rose 19% excluding foreign-exchange impacts, AbbVie said. In a Thursday research note to investors, Evercore ISI analyst Mark Schoenebaum cited an approximately 7%, $151 million beat on U.S. Humira sales as “largely offset” by a $111 million miss on global Viekira revenue, “primarily driven by a U.S. miss, possibly due to competition from Merck ( MRK ) as well.” AbbVie put total Humira sales at $3.577 billion for Q1, with U.S. sales up 32% to $2.195 billion. Viekira, which treats hepatitis C, is AbbVie’s No. 2 drug, generating $414 million globally, or about 6.9% of total sales, AbbVie said. AbbVie stock ended 0.8% higher on the stock market today , above 61.20. Medivation Had Been Subject Of Takeover Rumors Sanofi’s unsolicited offer was for $52.50 a share cash for Medivation, making the deal worth $9.3 billion. Medivation has been the subject of takeover rumors in recent weeks, with AstraZeneca ( AZN ) and Sanofi among the rumored suitors. Medivation’s sole commercial product is prostate-cancer drug Xtandi, marketed by Japan’s Astellas. Xtandi’s success since its 2012 launch has helped drive Medivation’s stock to an excellent Composite Rating of 98. The proposed purchase price represents a premium of over 50% to Medivation’s two-month volume weighted average price before the buyout talk began, Sanofi said. Medivation stock rose 7.9% Thursday to 56.18, suggesting that investors think that bids will go higher. Sanofi stock finished down 1.8%. Image provided by Shutterstock .

Abbott Boosts Cardio Device Business With $25 Billion St. Jude Buy

Two giants in cardiac devices agreed to merge Thursday, as Abbott Laboratories ( ABT ) announced an agreement to acquire  St. Jude Medical ( STJ ) in a deal worth $25 billion. Abbott agreed to pay $46.75 plus 0.8708 Abbott share for every St. Jude share. Based on Abbott’s five-day average share price, the deal valued St. Jude shares at $85 apiece. St. Jude stock was up more than 25% in morning trading on the stock market today , near 78, while Abbott stock was down more than 7%, below 41. Abbott said that the deal will add 21 cents to its EPS next year and 28 cents the following year. It expects to save $500 million in costs from the combination by 2020. Abbott will also assume or refinance St. Jude’s $5.7 billion in debt. The move will greatly enlarge Abbott’s cardiovascular device business, which now represents 19% of its revenue. “St. Jude Medical’s strong positions in heart failure devices, atrial fibrillation and cardiac rhythm management complement Abbott’s leading positions in coronary intervention and transcatheter mitral repair,” said Abbott’s press release. “Together, the company will compete in nearly every area of the cardiovascular market and hold the No. 1 or 2 positions across large and high-growth cardiovascular device markets.” Leerink analyst Danielle Antalffy agreed. St. Jude’s flat-to-negative sales growth over the last few years picked up to 8% in Q1, and she wrote in a research note that it’s set up to continue, while Abbott looked to be growing only in the low single digits. Antalffy also wrote that a competing bid is unlikely. “The most logical buyer beyond Abbott in our view would be Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ ),” Antalffy wrote. “In our meetings with J&J in mid-2015, management emphasized that the company is not interested in what they deemed ‘value’ markets within MedTech, specifically calling out cardiac rhythm management (nearly 30% of St. Jude’s total sales) and drug-eluting stents.” The deal announcement came on a busy day for M&A in medical field. Biotech Medivation ( MDVN ) confirmed that it had received an unsolicited $9.3 billion bid from big pharma Sanofi ( SNY ), while AbbVie ( ABBV ), which used to be Abbott’s biopharma division before it was spun out, agreed to buy another cancer-focused biotech, Stemcentrx, for $5.8 billion.