Pharmaceuticals

SPAC flips coin for $7 bln on biotech “platform”

3 May 2021

Roivant has built more than a dozen subsidiaries buying bigger companies' unwanted compounds. Results have been mixed. Now it's going public by merging with a blank-check vehicle. That may speed up its drug process, but the odds and rewards of success remain unknowable.

Capital Calls: Hella/Hueck, Evolution Gaming, 3M

27 Apr 2021

Concise views on global finance: A big block trade is good news for investors of German car parts maker Hella if it presages industry consolidation; Swedish gaming group enjoys a double whammy from locked-down punters and states jonesing for casino cash; 3M could use a pruning.

Review: How drug money cost a family its name

23 Apr 2021

Purdue Pharma set in motion an opioid epidemic which killed nearly half a million Americans in 25 years. Patrick Radden Keefe’s “Empire of Pain” shows how the Sacklers repeatedly used the same tactics to harm society and reap over $10 bln. The clan’s only damage is reputational.

Magic mushroom model is more service than pharma

22 Apr 2021

The fungi’s ingredient psilocybin has effectively treated depression and other ills. Startups like Field Trip jumped to develop patentable versions of the naturally occurring drug. Cutting trips from four-plus hours helps, but pricey therapist-shamans remain the key cost driver.

Thermo Fisher’s $17 bln deal bets on jam tomorrow

15 Apr 2021

The U.S. scientific device maker looks like it is overpaying for PPD given its return on investment will be less than 5% in a few years’ time. But a decade of deals shows PPD’s buyers benefiting from a trend for clinical trials to be outsourced. That may be true again this time.

Vaccine fiasco casts long shadow over Oxford IPO

12 Apr 2021

A university spinoff behind the AstraZeneca jab is listing for a mooted $700 mln. Vaccitech’s technology might combat diseases from cancer to hepatitis. Yet lingering doubts over efficacy and side-effects on Covid-19 patients are a risky legacy in a highly competitive sector.

DiaSorin wisely hedges against Covid-19 test slump

12 Apr 2021

The Italian diagnostic group which has benefited from pandemic demand is buying smaller U.S. peer Luminex for $1.8 bln. Thanks to hefty cost savings the deal makes financial sense. With vaccinations accelerating, it’s a good time to seek more enduring sources of revenue.

Capital Calls: Cellebrite good times

8 Apr 2021

Concise views on global finance in the Covid-19 era: The Israeli cracker of mobile-phone encryption is going public via a SPAC at a $2.4 billion valuation.

Covid-testing IPO is bet on long hypochondria

7 Apr 2021

German diagnostic tester Synlab is planning to float with a mooted $7 bln valuation. A receding pandemic may mean its 38% revenue growth in 2020 isn’t repeated. But the price reflects that, and consumers may well continue to obsess about other aspects of their health.

Vax surplus will be Uncle Sam’s hardest soft power

6 Apr 2021

America’s supply of Covid-19 jabs is burgeoning. The nation will soon have a surplus. The U.S. says it won’t trade these for political favors. But giving the glut away will still pay strategic and economic dividends. Vaccines are the opposite of a Trump-style zero-sum game.

Cox: Europe really needs to get its shot together

1 Apr 2021

From Rome to Paris and beyond governments are imposing further travel and other restrictions, many for reasons that look more petty, political and punitive than sanitary. That’s energy better spent on the best way to exit the health and economic crisis: vaccinating people.

Joe Biden’s trustbusters reveal their merger DNA

31 Mar 2021

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission wants to block Illumina’s $7.1 bln purchase of cancer-testing outfit Grail. Preventing the gene-sequencing group from reabsorbing a company it spun out in 2017 shows that watchdogs’ tougher thinking about competition is turning into action.

AstraZeneca could use a shot of under-promising

29 Mar 2021

The pharma group got caught in a spat between states over vaccine supplies, partly due to PR gaffes and overhasty pledges. A refresh of the board and chairman would be one way to overcome an episode that has hurt credibility and hampered rollout of a good product millions want.

Vaccine halo merits the effort for American pharma

29 Mar 2021

The success of Pfizer, J&J and Moderna in developing Covid-19 jabs and scaling up production has buffed their reputations. The immediate financial gain – about $4 bln of profit for Pfizer this year – may pale beside the benefit from having regulators and lawmakers on their side.

Europe’s UK vaccine threat has risky logic

23 Mar 2021

Brussels may block shipments of Covid-19 jabs to Britain amid a spat with AstraZeneca. Its ultimate threat would be to limit supplies of other remedies too, such as Pfizer’s. Even if the worst outcome is avoided, the result will be less efficient supply chains and costlier drugs.

Cox: Global vax race is lesson in risk appetites

18 Mar 2021

The widening gap between the jabbed and the jab-nots, with the U.S., UK and Israel light years ahead of Europe and Canada, isn’t just about healthcare systems. It’s about culture, too. Some societies are just better at embracing innovation and putting faith in technology.

Viewsroom: The jabbed and jabbed nots, Jardine

18 Mar 2021

Vaccination programmes are running apace in the UK, U.S., Israel and other nations, but they have worryingly stalled in Europe. This reflects more than just differing health systems, Breakingviews columnists argue. Plus, more on the shakeup of a historic Hong Kong trading house.

Capital Calls: Airline IPO, Turkey’s central bank

18 Mar 2021

Concise views on global finance in the Covid-19 era: U.S. regional air carrier Sun Country Airlines’ IPO pop is justified by positive cash flow; Turkey shows how emerging-market policymakers face trickier choices than their rich-world peers.

Capital Calls: Elon Musk, AstraZeneca

15 Mar 2021

Concise views on global finance in the Covid-19 era: The electric-vehicle maker’s jocular new title of “Technoking of Tesla” tests the theory that deeds matter more than words; fears over the drugmaker’s vaccine risk further delaying the re-opening of Europe’s economy.

Caymans may provide shelter in buyout storm

15 Mar 2021

Lowball takeover bids from bosses at China Biologic and Sina are tempting investor lawsuits in the Caribbean islands. Such M&A valuation challenges understandably have petered out in Delaware. Minority shareholders in Chinese companies, however, could use some extra protections.