Week of February 20, 2017 | Vol. 6, Issue 6
|
|
Firm Delays Muscular Dystrophy Drug U.S. Launch Amid Criticism of $89,000 Price
Sanders, Cummings investigating how Marathon Pharmaceuticals set hefty price tag for an old drug
Marathon Pharmaceuticals LLC said it would delay the U.S. launch of its expensive muscular-dystrophy drug amid mounting criticism of i
ts $89,000-a-year price, including from two members of Congress who launched an investigation Monday, and a powerful Republican member of the House of Representatives.
In a statement posted on the website of a nonprofit group involved with muscular dystrophy, Marathon CEO Jeffrey Aronin said the company was "pausing our launch," which had been scheduled for March. The company will meet with "caregivers and explain our commercialization plans, review their concerns, discuss all options, and move forward with commercialization based on an agreed plan of action," he said in the statement.
The delay was also announced at a Monday meeting in Washington of parents of children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare disease affecting some 12,000 boys in the U.S.
Marathon received approval last week from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell the drug, deflazacort, to patients with Duchenne. The drug hadn't been available in the U.S. previously, but many patients had been importing it from the U.K. for about $1,200 to $1,600 annually. Some families had raised objections to the new price.
|
Antitrust Rulings Put Chill on Health-Insurance Mergers
Cigna said it was calling off its $48 billion deal with Anthem and seeking more than $13 billion in damages on top of a breakup fee
Two health-insurance mergers worth a combined $82 billion are unraveling in the wake of court rulings that found the transactions violated federal antitrust law, all but quashing a deal boom that would have reshaped the industry. A
etna
Inc.
and
Humana
Inc.
said Tuesday they would
terminate their $34 billion merger agreement
instead of attempting to appeal a judge's decision last month that their combination would harm senior citizens.
Just hours later, Cigna Corp. said it was calling off its $48 billion merger agreement with Anthem Inc. and pursuing litigation seeking a $1.85 billion breakup fee plus more than $13 billion in damages from its deal partner.
Cigna's announcement escalated a monthslong fight in which the two companies have
accused each other of violating their merger agreement.
Anthem immediately disputed Cigna's authority to nix the deal.
"Anthem will continue to enforce its rights under the merger agreement and remains committed to closing the transaction," an Anthem spokeswoman said.
Anthem has said it unilaterally extended the merger agreement through April 30 and is
appealing the antitrust decision
, but it faces numerous obstacles to salvaging the transaction.
|
Below are summaries and charts with the past week's transactions from the different healthcare sectors. For a detailed table showing data for each industry transaction click on any of the charts or use the download link above. Total transaction values are provided in USD millions.
|
|
|
|
Pharma & Biotech
7 transactions totaling $88
million
Supplies, Equipment & Services
21 transactions totaling $1,124 million
Healthcare IT & Managed Care
2 transactions totaling $- million
Healthcare Facilities & Distributors
19 transactions totaling $296 million
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pharma & Biotech
16 private placements totaling $228 million
Supplies, Equipment & Services
11 private placements totaling $26 million
Healthcare IT & Managed Care
7 private placements totaling $20 million
Healthcare Facilities & Distributors
1 private placement totaling $- million
|
|
|
|
|
Pharma & Biotech
12 public offerings totaling $36 million
Supplies, Equipment & Services
6 public offerings totaling $35 million
Healthcare IT & Managed Care
0 public offerings
Healthcare Facilities & Distributors
3 public offerings totaling $1,829 million
|
 |
|
 Each week, w
e provide updated trading
comps for leading comp
anies from numerous healthcare subsectors.
To the right you will see a high-level breakdown of median revenue and EBITDA multiples for each of the specific subsectors
For a complete trading comp analysis (including the individual equities that comprise the subsectors), click on the table to the right or use the download link from the top of this newsletter.
Note: data reflects prior week close.
|
RECENT INDUSTRY HEADLINES
A Sampling of Relevant Industry Headlines from the Last Week
Below are snippets from relevant industry news articles from the past week presented in chronological order. For additional information or the article's complete text, click the headline link to view the original publication.
|
February 13, 2017 -
Wall Street Journal
Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries
Ltd. swung to a loss in its latest quarter on an acquisition write-down as its interim chief executive contends with a deal-driven debt load.
However, shares of the Israeli pharmaceutical company rose as it beat revenue and profit expectations.
Last week former Chairman Yitzhak Peterburg
became interim CEO
, succeeding Erez Vigodman. Mr. Peterburg relinquished the chairman's post, with Sol Barer, a member of Teva's board, becoming chairman.
Mr. Peterburg said Monday that in the year ahead he would pay down the company's debt to improve its balance sheet and that he was conducting a review of the company to find opportunities to add value.
Last year, Teva, known for its generic-drugs business,
closed its $40.5 billion deal
for Allergan's generics operations.
The company reported long-term debt of about $39.38 billion as of Dec. 31, up from about $11.3 billion a year earlier.
Merck Stops Clinical Trial of Alzheimer's Drug
February 14, 2017 -
Wall Street Journal
Merck & Co. said Tuesday it stopped a clinical trial of an experimental Alzheimer's drug because it wasn't helping patients, the latest setback in the pharmaceutical industry's quest to find a better treatment for the brain disorder.
An outside committee monitoring the study of more than 2,000 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's concluded there was "virtually no chance of finding a positive clinical effect" of the drug, verubecestat, Merck said. The study, which was due to be completed around midyear, was testing whether verubecestat slowed declines in patients' cognition and daily functioning compared with a placebo.
"The benefit-risk profile no longer made any sense," Roger Perlmutter, president of Merck's research unit, said in an interview. He said there weren't major safety issues that on their own would justify stopping the study, but "it did not make sense to expose patients to any risk, whatever that may be, because the study would not succeed."
February 16, 2017 - Fierce Pharma
Stada already had two interested buyers in the mix as of earlier this week. And now, it's got three.
The German drugmaker
confirmed Thursday afternoon that it had received yet another expression of buyout interest, this one from a mystery buyer indicating it was willing to fork over €58 ($68.60) per Stada share. That's an increase on the €56 ($59.48) per share-or €3.5 billion ($3.72 billion)-floated by private equity suitor Cinven.
"Stada is still weighing up its options on how to react in the best interest of the company," it said in a statement.
The news follows a pair of
announcements
from Stada from earlier this week detailing interest from Cinven and fellow private equity outfit Advent International.
February 16, 2017 -
Fierce Pharma
Pfizer struggled early on to get RA pill Xeljanz to bring in the kind of sales it wanted-and a new head-to-head study against AbbVie behemoth Humira isn't going to help keep the momentum going as much as the new York drug maker had hoped.
Thursday, the company
announced
that Xeljanz, one in a new class of JAK inhibitors, had matched Humira when both drugs were paired with methotrexate. On its own, though, Xeljanz didn't measure up to the world's best seller, missing the study's primary endpoint of non-inferiority.
Pfizer, of course, had been hoping to show that Xeljanz could hang with the anti-TNF big guns-including Humira-as a monotherapy. The trial was the first to pit the JAK class against Humira.
Despite the result, Pfizer says it doesn't regret trying. The phase 3b/4 study "is representative of the type of innovative and clinically meaningful trials that Pfizer Inflammation & Immunology believes are important to help advance patient care and the science of JAK inhibition," said Michael Corbo, Pfizer's chief development officer for the unit, said in a statement.
|
 |
|
As an international, healthcare-focused merchant bank and financial advisory firm, we provide world-class services and capital to middle-market healthcare companies around the globe. We aim to keep our clients well-informed of healthcare news and events. With this additional insight in mind, together, we can recognize trends and opportunities that benefit our clients. We hope that you will reach out to Bourne Partners to help execute your healthcare operational and transactional needs. To learn more about our firm, visit our website or utilize the links below to engage with us on social media.
Sincerely,
The Bourne Partners Team
Bourne Partners
550 South Caldwell Street
Suite 900
Charlotte, NC 28202
704-552-8407
|
|
|
|
|
