AstraZeneca To Acquire Omthera Pharmaceuticals

AstraZeneca To Acquire Omthera Pharmaceuticals

AstraZeneca is set to acquire Omthera Pharmaceuticals in an effort to increase its cardiovascular medicine business.

The acquisition, which is worth around $443 million, highlights the determination of Pascal Soriot to give the company a boost through a number of well-planned acquisitions. The acquisition of the fish oil-derived drug maker is the second acquisition of the second biggest drug manufacturer in Britain in the cardiovascular industry.

The company acquired biotech company AlphaCore Pharma around a month ago.

The finances of AstraZeneca were affected after some patent protection of older drugs expired. The company is currently looking for new products to take the place of Seroquel, an anti-psychotic medicine.

A definitive agreement was reached in the acquisition of Omthera at a price of $12.70 for each share, which is 88 percent higher than the closing price of the company a week ago. Shareholders will also receive contingent value rights or CVRs of around $4.70 for each share. However, the success of Epanova, an experimental drug use in treating very high triglyceride levels in patients, will determine the value of the CVR.

Biotech and pharmaceutical companies have started to use CVRs for agreements in order to serve as a link to different expectations of experimental drugs, whose sales remain to be seen.

The final-stage Phase II clinical evaluations for the drug were already completed. It is already being prepared for approval by US regulatory agencies. The upcoming fish oil-derived drug will compete with similar medicines from Amarin and GlaxoSmithKline. Earlier reports had hinted that AstraZeneca was among the possible buyers for Amarin.

The cardiovascular drug market is a critical area for the US-based company, which offers the cholesterol drug Crestor in the market. Omthera revealed earlier that it was looking to perform a number of clinical evaluations on a drug that combine Epanova and Crestor.

In addition to Omthera, AstraZeneca is also looking to increase sales through another cardiovascular medicine, Brillinta.

Posted by James Fried on Wednesday May 29 2013, 2:16 AM EST. Ref: Reuters. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Finance. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0