Astra buys medicine specialist in £293.1m US deal

AstraZeneca is to buy Omthera Pharmaceuticals for as much as $443m (£293.1m) to build up its cardiovascular drug business, a priority area for Britain’s second-biggest drug maker.

The acquisition of the US-based specialist in fish oil-derived medicine underscores a drive by new chief executive Pascal Soriot to revive AstraZeneca’s fortunes through a series of bolt-on deals.

It is his second purchase in the cardiovascular field, following the acquisition last month of AlphaCore Pharma, a small early-stage US biotechnology company.

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The latest transaction pitches AstraZeneca into competition with rivals including GlaxoSmithKline that already sell heart-friendly fish oil drugs.

Omthera’s leading drug has already completed final-stage clinical tests and has the potential to be combined with AstraZeneca’s blockbuster cholesterol fighter Crestor. Helvea analyst Odile Rundquist said the deal was “a good move as it perfectly complements AstraZeneca’s cardiovascular portfolio”.

AstraZeneca’s sales and profits are falling as older medicines lose patent protection and the company badly needs new products to replace former big sellers like the antipsychotic Seroquel, which lost exclusivity last year.

AstraZeneca said yesterday it had entered into a definitive agreement to buy Omthera for $12.70 per share, or approximately $323m, a premium of 88 per cent to Omthera’s closing price on Friday.

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In addition, Omthera shareholders will get “contingent value rights” (CVRs) of up to approximately $4.70 per share, or $120m in total, depending on the success of Omthera’s experimental drug Epanova, for treating patients with very high triglycerides, a type of blood fat that is bad for the heart.

CVRs are being used increasingly in deals in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology market to bridge differing expectations surrounding new drugs whose final sales are uncertain.

Epanova is an ultra-pure mixture of the free fatty acid forms of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), derived from fish oil. It has already completed final-stage Phase III clinical trials and is set to be submitted for US regulatory approval around the middle of this year.

The new drug will compete with other fish oil-based medicines such as GlaxoSmithKline’s Lovaza.

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