M&A
Novartis finds its ideal buyout target in the mirror
Novartis, flush with billions after selling its stake in Swiss rival Roche, looked out upon the biotech universe and decided the best use of its cash was buying more shares of Novartis.
The company is putting $15 billion toward stock buybacks, Novartis said during its quarterly earnings presentation yesterday, after spending roughly the same amount on its own shares last month. The reason, Chief Financial Officer Harry Kirsch told reporters on a conference call, is nothing on sale looked all that great. "If we were to find more bolt-on acquisition targets that we could spend the capital on, where we have high conviction that … we could generate an attractive return for shareholders, we would rather do that," Kirsch said.
That's a pretty dim assessment of the would-be bolt-on targets that make up the biotech industry, which has lost nearly 50% of its value since peaking in early 2021. Major pharma firms including Merck, Pfizer, and Sanofi have signed multibillion-dollar buyout deals during biotech's protracted fallow period, but Novartis, which recently spent just $500 million on the privately held DTx Pharma, doesn't appear to see the same allure.
Money
BridgeBio: Now what?
BridgeBio has added about $3 billion worth of value since Monday, when the company's long-awaited heart disease trial turned out positive, leaving Wall Street to wonder: What should a small biotech company do with a big opportunity?
The drug, acoramidis, achieved a "best-case scenario" in its Phase 3 trial, according to TD Cowen analyst Tyler Van Buren, making it "a likely multi-billion-dollar drug." The question now is whether BridgeBio can navigate the process of commercializing such a drug — and how a small company accustomed to orphan indications should go about competing with the likes of Pfizer.
It's going to be expensive, which is why investors' focus has shifted from the data on acoramidis to BridgeBio's finances, according to Salim Syed, an analyst at Mizuho. The company had about $470 million in cash as of March 31, which BridgeBio said would carry the company into 2024. That was before the costly task of launching acoramidis was assured. If BridgeBio wants to raise money without auctioning off the rights to its potential blockbuster, the company might have to get creative, which could mean signing a royalty agreement to trade up-front cash for long-term upside.
Drug Pricing
J&J is suing, too
Johnson & Johnson is joining the list of major drugmakers suing to stop the federal government from letting Medicare negotiate certain drug prices, pointing out that one of its top-selling medicines might become an early target.
As STAT's Rachel Cohrs reports, J&J's suit makes some familiar arguments — that the planned negotiations amount to confiscation of private property and a violation of the First Amendment — while claiming that the company has legal standing because Xarelto, its blockbuster blood-thinner, has a pretty good chance of being among the first round of 10 drugs Medicare will examine when the list gets published Sept. 1.
J&J follows fellow manufacturers Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Astellas in suing over this facet of the Inflation Reduction Act. The industry lobbying group PhRMA has also sued, as has the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Last week, the Chamber asked a drug to issue a preliminary injunction that would stop the law from taking effect by Oct. 1.
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