Pfizer, Mylan merger

Pfizer and Mylan drugs patent merger

Pfizer, Mylan merger
Pfizer, Mylan merger

Pfizer is expected to announce today that it will combine its off-patent drug business with Mylan, the generics drugmaker with a market value of $9.5bn.  The US drugmaker is expected to create a new unit with larger seller of off-patent and generic medicines including Lipitor and Viagra.

Mylan shareholders  will hold just over 40 per cent of the new venture, and Pfizer would also receive  close to $12bn in proceeds from the sale of debt, and the deal is expected to be all stock.

Shares in Mylan have fallen as the generics maker struggles with declining prices in the US. Heather Bresch, Mylan CEO will depart the company after seven years.

Pfizer’s deal with Mylan is the latest in a wave of large pharma and healthcare mergers this year, including Pfizer’s aacquision  in June 2019 of  cancer specialist Array Biopharma, a Colorado-based drugmaker  for $11.4bn and made advance in ancology,  Bristol-Myers Squibb’s  $90bn acquisition of biotech Celgene, Roche’s $4.8bn takeover of Gene therapy company Spark Therapeutics and Johnson & Johnson’s $3.4bn acquisition of surgical robotics specialist Auris Health. AbbVie last month signalled its intention to buy Allergan, the maker of Botox, for $63bn.

Michael Goettler, who runs Upjohn, Pfizer’s off-patient drugs business based in Shanghai, will become the CEO of the new venture and Robert Coury, Mylan’s chairman would become its executive chairman, as Pfizer has been trying to reposition itself as a smaller company focused on more innovative medicines and vaccines and also spinning off its consumer health business into a joint venture with GSK’s consumer business.

Pfizer yesterday lowered its forecasts for the full year to take into account costs relatled to its joint venture with GSK and the acquisitions of Array and Therachon It said it expected sales of $50.5bn to $52.bn, down from an April forecast as high as $54bn. It projected adjusted earnings per share of $2.76 to $2.86, down from an April  forecast for $2.83 to $2.93. Second quarter adjusted earnings were 80 cents per share.