PARIS (Reuters) – Sanofi said on Sunday it was no longer in talks with biotech company Horizon Therapeutics and had no intention of submitting an offer to buy the company, leaving Amgen Inc as the only potential candidate for a deal.
The French group clarified in a statement that “price expectations” for a transaction did not meet its value creation criteria.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Amgen was in advanced talks to buy Horizon and that a deal could be finalized by Monday.
Horizon Therapeutics, whose market capitalization is around 21 billion euros, announced at the end of November that it had entered into discussions with Sanofi, but also with Amgen and Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, with a view to a takeover. The latter, however, announced on December 3 that it did not intend to make an offer.
Sanofi – which has already finalized this year the acquisition of Amunix Pharmaceuticals, a company specializing in immuno-oncology, for an initial payment of one billion dollars – had indicated at the beginning of December that a possible offer for Horizon would be made entirely in cash. .
Horizon produces drugs for serious rare, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. The biotech has in particular in its portfolio a treatment against thyroid disease of the eyes, Tepezza.
(Report Benjamin Mallet, with Kanjyik Ghosh in Bangalore)
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