Welche Firmen noch im Visier sind nach Vicuron. Große Pharmaunternehmen auf der Suche:
Übernahmephantasie
Medicine & Markets
Big Pharma Goes Shopping: Who's Next?
Scott Gottlieb, 06.16.05, 2:00 PM ET
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NEW YORK - Today's big purchase of Vicuron Pharmaceuticals by Pfizer continues a broader trend among the large drug makers: They're using their hoards of cash to buy new products and fill up their pipelines with new drugs.
Sign up for The Biotech Insider, Dr. Gottlieb's free weekly e-mail dispatch chronicling insider moves within the biotech sector and at the FDA.
T
Readers of the Forbes/Gottlieb Biotech Investor will be familiar with Vicuron (nasdaq: MICU - news - people ). It was my recommended stock in February's issue of the investment newsletter. Vicuron focuses exclusively on infection-fighting drugs that target very serious infections, the kind usually seen in hospitalized patients.
Vicuron's lead drug, Dalbavancin, could eventually become the new standard for serious staph and strep infections, displacing the current mainstay Vancomycin. The company also has a second drug in advanced stages of development, Anidulafungin that could also become a mainstay for treating fungal infections.
Special Offer: New drugs to fight diseases like cancer and diabetes are emerging from the lab and going into the marketplace. New treatment options for patients also mean huge opportunities for investors. Position your portfolio today. Download "Three Biotech Stocks To Buy Now," a special report from the Forbes Gottlieb Biotech Investor.
The trend in big pharma is to buy biotech companies with products in late stages of development. Vicuron fits that profile, with its two lead drug candidates. This acquisition trend is likely to continue.
First, the drug companies have hoards of cash, some of it recently repatriated as a result of a change in the tax code. In many cases, the pipelines of new drugs that the big drug makers maintain are too thin to support their present valuations. They need new drugs, especially drugs in late stages of clinical development in order to maintain their current profitability and make up for some of their present drugs that are starting to lose patent protection.
Many biotech stocks are also trading at historically low valuations, so they are cheap targets. Moreover, as the big drug makers move further and further upstream, into drugs that treat more specialized conditions like rare infections or cancer, they will increasingly need to look to biotechs, which have long mastered these rare conditions.
Big drugmakers have often focused more on primary care drugs that treat common conditions like high blood pressure and mild pain and allergies. But regulatory, reimbursement and legal impediments make these primary-care markets less attractive. The big drugmakers need to move into the specialized disease space that the biotechs have long dominated.
Special Offer: Lock in yields of 12% plus with Canadian energy royalty trusts. For the best names to buy now, get the picks in Forbes/Lehmann Income Securities Investor.
Vicuron fit that mold. With its two late-stage products (and a market cap of around $1 billion) it was also a comparatively cheap way for Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ) to acquire to very attractive drugs at a low valuation.
In fact, in the Forbes/Gottlieb Biotech Investor, I noted at the time that Vicuron was the only biotech company with two products about to come on market that had a market cap of less than $1 billion.
To answer the question of what biotech is next, look for biotech companies with late-stage drug candidates in attractive therapeutic markets like cancer or diabetes or heart disease.
In an upcoming issue of the Forbes/Gottlieb Biotech Investor, I'll take up some of these specialty-focused names. On the primary-care side of the drug market there are also a few attractive targets.
One potential takeover could be Sepracor (nasdaq: SEPR - news - people ), with its new sleep aide Lunesta. The space for sleeping pills is about to become a lot more crowded, with new potential launches of a long-acting version of the popular sleep aid Ambien, and two new drugs, Takeda Pharmaceutica's (otc: TKPHF - news - people ) Ramelteon and Indiplon by Pfizer.
The new competition could actually increase the value of Lunesta to a potential acquirer. If other big drugmakers have popular sleep aids in their portfolio, any drugmaker without one may feel the need to fill that gap.
Special Offer: NoLoad Fund*X has beaten the market for the past five-, ten-, 15- and 20-year periods, and its annualized 18% return since 1995 makes it the Hulbert Financial Digest's top-ranked fund letter for the past ten years. Find out about the June buys, including two Latin American ETFs riding big waves of momentum.
While Sepracor's stock is a little rich at its current price, any blip in its sales could send its stock down. That occurrence would make for a good time to buy into a company that could be high on the list of big drugmakers on the prowl for their next blockbuster. GlaxoSmithKline (nyse: GSK - news - people ) and Novartis AG (nyse: NVS - news - people ) are two potential acquirers.
Lunesta is the only sleep drug with an indication for chronic use, and has better sleep data than other drugs in the category. And the parent compound inside Lunesta has already been on the market for about ten years in Europe, so there is plenty of existing comfort with the drug's safety.
Furthermore, Lunesta looks like it's already taking share from Ambien.
The bear case for the stock is that there is a lot of shorting against the expiration of some underwritten calls, which some believe has been keeping a cap on the stock price. Lunesta is also the fourth-biggest drug launch in history, so the good news is factored in. Finally, there is also a lot of sampling of the drug--and some of that may be getting measured by IMS as new scripts--so the number of new scripts could be overstated a little.
But any bad news, though, is good news for investors. On dips, this stock is a buy for biotech investors, as well as for some big pharmaceutical companies that are looking to round out their pipelines.
Scott Gottlieb is a physician and editor of the Forbes/Gottlieb Biotech Investor. He is a former senior FDA and Medicare official. His comments on FDA can be found at his personal blog, www.FDAInsider.com. For more analysis from Dr. Gottlieb, or to subscribe to Forbes/Gottlieb Biotech Investor, click here.
Übernahmephantasie
Medicine & Markets
Big Pharma Goes Shopping: Who's Next?
Scott Gottlieb, 06.16.05, 2:00 PM ET
pic
§
NEW YORK - Today's big purchase of Vicuron Pharmaceuticals by Pfizer continues a broader trend among the large drug makers: They're using their hoards of cash to buy new products and fill up their pipelines with new drugs.
Sign up for The Biotech Insider, Dr. Gottlieb's free weekly e-mail dispatch chronicling insider moves within the biotech sector and at the FDA.
T
Readers of the Forbes/Gottlieb Biotech Investor will be familiar with Vicuron (nasdaq: MICU - news - people ). It was my recommended stock in February's issue of the investment newsletter. Vicuron focuses exclusively on infection-fighting drugs that target very serious infections, the kind usually seen in hospitalized patients.
Vicuron's lead drug, Dalbavancin, could eventually become the new standard for serious staph and strep infections, displacing the current mainstay Vancomycin. The company also has a second drug in advanced stages of development, Anidulafungin that could also become a mainstay for treating fungal infections.
Special Offer: New drugs to fight diseases like cancer and diabetes are emerging from the lab and going into the marketplace. New treatment options for patients also mean huge opportunities for investors. Position your portfolio today. Download "Three Biotech Stocks To Buy Now," a special report from the Forbes Gottlieb Biotech Investor.
The trend in big pharma is to buy biotech companies with products in late stages of development. Vicuron fits that profile, with its two lead drug candidates. This acquisition trend is likely to continue.
First, the drug companies have hoards of cash, some of it recently repatriated as a result of a change in the tax code. In many cases, the pipelines of new drugs that the big drug makers maintain are too thin to support their present valuations. They need new drugs, especially drugs in late stages of clinical development in order to maintain their current profitability and make up for some of their present drugs that are starting to lose patent protection.
Many biotech stocks are also trading at historically low valuations, so they are cheap targets. Moreover, as the big drug makers move further and further upstream, into drugs that treat more specialized conditions like rare infections or cancer, they will increasingly need to look to biotechs, which have long mastered these rare conditions.
Big drugmakers have often focused more on primary care drugs that treat common conditions like high blood pressure and mild pain and allergies. But regulatory, reimbursement and legal impediments make these primary-care markets less attractive. The big drugmakers need to move into the specialized disease space that the biotechs have long dominated.
Special Offer: Lock in yields of 12% plus with Canadian energy royalty trusts. For the best names to buy now, get the picks in Forbes/Lehmann Income Securities Investor.
Vicuron fit that mold. With its two late-stage products (and a market cap of around $1 billion) it was also a comparatively cheap way for Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ) to acquire to very attractive drugs at a low valuation.
In fact, in the Forbes/Gottlieb Biotech Investor, I noted at the time that Vicuron was the only biotech company with two products about to come on market that had a market cap of less than $1 billion.
To answer the question of what biotech is next, look for biotech companies with late-stage drug candidates in attractive therapeutic markets like cancer or diabetes or heart disease.
In an upcoming issue of the Forbes/Gottlieb Biotech Investor, I'll take up some of these specialty-focused names. On the primary-care side of the drug market there are also a few attractive targets.
One potential takeover could be Sepracor (nasdaq: SEPR - news - people ), with its new sleep aide Lunesta. The space for sleeping pills is about to become a lot more crowded, with new potential launches of a long-acting version of the popular sleep aid Ambien, and two new drugs, Takeda Pharmaceutica's (otc: TKPHF - news - people ) Ramelteon and Indiplon by Pfizer.
The new competition could actually increase the value of Lunesta to a potential acquirer. If other big drugmakers have popular sleep aids in their portfolio, any drugmaker without one may feel the need to fill that gap.
Special Offer: NoLoad Fund*X has beaten the market for the past five-, ten-, 15- and 20-year periods, and its annualized 18% return since 1995 makes it the Hulbert Financial Digest's top-ranked fund letter for the past ten years. Find out about the June buys, including two Latin American ETFs riding big waves of momentum.
While Sepracor's stock is a little rich at its current price, any blip in its sales could send its stock down. That occurrence would make for a good time to buy into a company that could be high on the list of big drugmakers on the prowl for their next blockbuster. GlaxoSmithKline (nyse: GSK - news - people ) and Novartis AG (nyse: NVS - news - people ) are two potential acquirers.
Lunesta is the only sleep drug with an indication for chronic use, and has better sleep data than other drugs in the category. And the parent compound inside Lunesta has already been on the market for about ten years in Europe, so there is plenty of existing comfort with the drug's safety.
Furthermore, Lunesta looks like it's already taking share from Ambien.
The bear case for the stock is that there is a lot of shorting against the expiration of some underwritten calls, which some believe has been keeping a cap on the stock price. Lunesta is also the fourth-biggest drug launch in history, so the good news is factored in. Finally, there is also a lot of sampling of the drug--and some of that may be getting measured by IMS as new scripts--so the number of new scripts could be overstated a little.
But any bad news, though, is good news for investors. On dips, this stock is a buy for biotech investors, as well as for some big pharmaceutical companies that are looking to round out their pipelines.
Scott Gottlieb is a physician and editor of the Forbes/Gottlieb Biotech Investor. He is a former senior FDA and Medicare official. His comments on FDA can be found at his personal blog, www.FDAInsider.com. For more analysis from Dr. Gottlieb, or to subscribe to Forbes/Gottlieb Biotech Investor, click here.
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