Newsgroup: it.economia.borsa
Titolo: società di biotecnologie

Biotech firms become more tempting targets Large drugmakers face expiring
patents on top sellers. They want new products to ensure growth.
Vincent Aita of Kilkenny Capital Management says he picks biotechnology
stocks on their potential as takeover targets. The strategy is paying off.
The number of biotech deals, including acquisitions and product alliances,
rose more than 32 percent to 232 last year, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg. At least four of Aita's holdings, including Serono SA and Kos
Pharmaceuticals Inc., were bought by bigger drugmakers. Aita, who manages
about $200 million in health stocks, is betting there will be even more
transactions in 2007.
"There is an escalating arms race," Aita said in an interview at the
JPMorgan Healthcare Conference last week in San Francisco. "There are more
deals to be had."
Pfizer Inc., the world's largest pharmaceuticals maker, and Merck & Co. Inc.
may buy biotech companies to make up for a scarcity of experimental
medicines and expiring patents for best-selling products. On the shopping
list are companies with experimental compounds as well as those with new
drug-development science and technologies, investors at the conference said.
Last year, the number of biotech deals in North America, including company
acquisitions and joint ventures, increased from 175 in 2005, and the average
premium - the difference between market value and takeover value - rose to
33 percent from 23 percent, based on Bloomberg data.
More transactions and higher premiums are likely this year, according to
analysts, investors and company executives interviewed last week at the San
Francisco conference, the annual meeting where buyers and sellers gather to
make deals. About 7,000 people packed hallways and conference rooms at the
Westin St. Francis Hotel to hear presentations from 310 companies.
"Premiums are going up," JPMorgan analyst Geoffrey Meacham said. "You're
seeing a lot of bidding wars."
Driving the trend are big pharmaceutical companies with billions in cash
that need new drugs to ensure growth. New York-based Pfizer may lose almost
half of its $51 billion in 2005 sales as a result of competition from
generic-drug makers to products with expiring patents. Pfizer has entered at
least six research partnerships since November. Two transactions for which a
value was disclosed totaled a combined $450 million.
Merck, which employs more than 10,000 in Montgomery County, may lose $3
billion in sales this year from its top-selling Zocor cholesterol pill
because of generic competition. It signed 35 transactions last year,
including the $1.1 billion purchase of San Francisco-based Sirna
Therapeutics Inc., which is developing drugs based on blocking genes
involved in disease.
Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., aims to become "the best
biotechnology company," chief executive officer Richard Clark said in an
interview at last week's meeting. Merck's biotech deals totaled $1.4 billion
in 2006.
"It's science and technology and potential companies; we're looking at all
ends of the spectrum," Clark said. "Obviously, it's competitive."
Eli Lilly & Co., which is offering $2.28 billion to buy its biotech partner
Icos Corp., is spending $1.5 billion this decade on building its own
biotechnology operations.
"The price of poker has definitely gone up," said John Lechleiter,
Indianapolis-based Lilly's president and chief operating officer, at the
conference. "There are too few good assets and too many bidders."
Amgen Inc., the world's biggest biotechnology company, and Biogen Idec Inc.
of Cambridge, Mass., also are considering acquisitions and alliances.
Biogen has bought three companies since May with a combined value exceeding
$270 million to reduce reliance on its biggest product, the multiple
sclerosis treatment Avonex. The company agreed to pay as much as $120
million for Syntonix Pharmaceuticals, adding experimental treatments for
hemophilia.
Premiums over the market price of traded shares also are rising. They ranged
from 21 percent for Swiss drugmaker Actelion Ltd.'s purchase of Cotherix
Inc., a U.S. biotechnology company, to 170 percent for AnorMed Inc., which
Genzyme Corp. took over in a bidding war with Millennium Pharmaceuticals
Inc.
"Last year saw the first hostile bid by a biotechnology company" in the
Genzyme takeover of AnorMed, said Steven Burrill, CEO of Burrill & Co., a
life-sciences investment adviser in San Francisco.
"Premiums are running 50 percent to 100 percent, which means the market is
undervaluing the stocks," Burrill said.

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ok spaghetti mai provocato..... e io me te magno