Mergers and Acquisitions

On Nov. 21, 2011, Gilead Sciences agreed to acquire Pharmasset for $137 per share in cash, or a total of approximately $11 billion. Pharmasset’s board of directors unanimously approved the transaction, which is expected to close during the first quarter of 2012. Gilead will finance the transaction with cash, bank debt, and senior unsecured notes.

On Monday, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries agreed to pay shareholders $460 million in cash to acquire a 57% stake in Taiyo Pharmaceutical Industry. Teva also will offer to buy all outstanding shares of Taiyo. The deal values Taiyo at approximately $1.3 billion.

Johnson and Johnson Acquires Vaccine Developer Crucell

ATMI, Inc. has acquired the Belgian biotechnology firm Artelis SA, which offers technologies for cell culture research and manufacturing scale-up.

ARTES Biotechnology (Langenfield, Germany) has acquired the Anavax virus-like particle (VLP) technology from Select Vaccines Ltd. (Melbourne, Australia). Anavax is a patent-protected VLP technology that can be applied to develop vaccines for the prevention of several infectious diseases.

Abbott (Abbott Park, IL) will acquire full ownership of Piramal Healthcare Limited?s Healthcare Solutions business (Mumbai, India), a provider of Indian-branded generics, for an up front payment of $2.12 billion, plus $400 million annually for the next four years.

Althea Technologies, Inc. (San Diego, CA), a provider of services for biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing will acquire the assets and IP portfolio of Altus Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA).

Repligen Corporation (Waltham, MA) has acquired the assets of BioFlash Partners, LLC (Marlborough, MA), including a technology platform for producing prepacked plug-and-play chromatography columns.

Vivalis (Nantes, France) has acquired Humalys SAS, a private French biotech research and development company based in Lyon, specialized in the generation of human MAbs.

Watson Pharmaceuticals has acquired Eden Biodesign for $15 million.

Novasep (Pompey, France), a producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and purification technologies for the life sciences industry, has acquired Henogen (Charleroi, Belgium), a contract manufacturing organization (CMO) offering bioprocess development and manufacturing services from the cell bank to the supply of clinical products. The move adds a complementary range of upstream processing capabilities and services to Novasep's downstream processing offering. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Roche (Basel, Switzerland) will acquire 100% of Innovatis, AG (Bielefeld, Germany).

PPD, Inc. (Wilmington, NC) has entered into a strategic collaboration with Merck & Co., Inc. (Whitehouse Station, NJ), involving vaccine testing and assay development.

Sartorius Stedim Biotech GmbH (SSB, Goettingen, Germany) has acquired the Swiss-based company, Wave Biotech AG (Tagelswangen, Switzerland).

GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals S.A. (GSK, London, UK) and AFFiRiS GmbH (Vienna, Austria) have announced a collaboration agreement that grants GSK exclusive rights to AFFiRiS’s Alzheimer’s disease vaccine programs that aims at treating Alzheimer’s by targeting the beta-amyloid protein.

Pall Corporation (East Hills, NY) has purchased GeneSystems (Bruz, France), a privately held biotechnology company that has developed a molecular diagnostics platform.

Roche (Basel, Switzerland) will acquire Arius Research Inc. (Toronto, Canada) in an all-cash transaction for approximately $190 million.

Intas Biopharmaceuticals Limited (IBPL, Ahmedabad, India) has acquired the US-based biotechnology corporation, Biologics Process Development Incorporated (BPD Inc., Poway, CA).

Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) will acquire U3 Pharma AG (Martinsried, Germany), a German biotechnology company focusing on research into antibodies for the treatment of cancer.

PharmAthene, Inc., (Annapolis, MD), has completed its acquisition of Avecia’s (Manchester, UK) biodefense vaccines business.

Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation (Aurora, OH) has acquired the assets of J & J Scientific Products, Inc. (Tampa, FL), a manufacturer of disposable plastic products for the biopharmaceutical market.

Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Carlsbad, CA), has purchased Symphony GenIsis for $120 million.

Bayer Schering Pharma AG, (Berlin, Germany) has completed the acquisition of a biologics manufacturing facility in Emeryville, CA, from Novartis.

Lancaster Laboratories Inc., (Lancaster, PA, www.lancasterlabs.com), part of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., (Walthan, MA), has acquired Microchem Laboratories, located in County Waterford, Ireland.

Lonza (Basel, Switzerland, www.lonza.com) purchased Zyentia's (Cambridge, UK, www.zyentia.com) Aggresolve technology, a comprehensive in silico protein analysis platform that can be applied to problem solving of protein aggregation, for an undisclosed sum.

Dutch biotechnology company Crucell N.V. (Leiden, The Netherlands, www.crucell.com) has purchased Florida-based Berna Products Corp. from Acambis.

Celsis International plc (Chicago, IL, www.celsis.com) has acquired In Vitro Technologies, Inc. (Baltimore, MD, www.invitrotech.com).

PerkinElmer Inc. (Wellesley, MA, www.perkinelmer.com) has acquired Avalon Instruments Limited (Belfast, Northern Ireland).

Aida Pharmaceuticals (Hangzhou, China) has completed its acquisition of majority control of Shanghai Qiaer Bio-Technology Co., Ltd (Shanghai, China).