Blackstone and Carlyle Consider Joint Bid for Novartis Generic Business – Bloomberg News | Photo credits: Copyright ® Novartis AG
Feb 1 (Reuters) – Blackstone and Carlyle are in talks to possibly submit a joint bid for the generic drugs arm of Novartis, the Bloomberg news agency reported on Tuesday.
The two private equity firms have been exploring the merits of a joint bid to buy Sandoz, which could be valued at around $25 billion (22.2 billion euros), according to sources cited by Bloomberg.
Other groups are also in the running to get their hands on the Swiss giant’s generics subsidiary, according to Bloomberg, which cites Advent International and KKR in particular.
On the Zurich Stock Exchange, the Novartis share accelerated its progression on this information and gained 1.37% around 3:30 p.m. GMT.
Novartis announced last October that it was considering the possible sale of the Sandoz branch, after years of restructuring, as pressure on prices intensifies in the sector of drugs whose patent has fallen into the public domain.
Carlyle and Novartis declined to comment, while Blackstone was not immediately available. (Report Dania Nadeem in Bangalore, French version Laetitia Volga, edited by Sophie Louet)