Yahoo Finance Pfizer (PFE) to Raise $31B in Debt to Fund Seagen (SGEN) Deal
Pfizer PFE announced that it plans a debt offering worth $31 billion to fund its pending acquisition of cancer drugmaker, Seagen SGEN. The bond sale is probably one of the largest debt offerings of all time.
The debt offering, which will consist of eight tranches of notes, is expected to be closed on May 19. Pfizer said that BofA Securities, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan are acting as the joint lead managers and joint book-running managers.
In March, Pfizer offered to buy Seagen for $229 per share in cash, which adds up to a total enterprise value of approximately $43 billion.
In the past year, Pfizer’s stock has declined 26.6% against an increase of 12.6% for the industry.
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Seagen’s acquisition is expected to strengthen Pfizer’s portfolio of cancer drugs by adding a class of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). The addition of Seagen should strengthen Pfizer’s already leading oncology portfolio of 24 approved innovative cancer medicines
Seagen currently markets four cancer drugs — Adcetris, Padcev, Tukysa and Tivdak. All these drugs have witnessed strong uptake so far, with Adcetris being the majority contributor to Seagen’s top line. The drug has been approved by the FDA for six cancer indications.
Several studies on Adcetris, Padcev, Tukysa and Tivdak are currently underway for expanded indications in earlier lines of therapy.
The Seagen deal is expected to help Pfizer recover some of the $17 billion in sales, which the company expects to lose due to the expiration of some of its patents in the 2025-2030 period. Pfizer is also seeing a significant decline in sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and medicines. Pfizer expects Seagen to contribute more than $10 billion in risk-adjusted revenues in 2030. The acquisition aligns with Pfizer’s strategic goal of adding $25 billion in revenues by the end of 2030 by developing its business.
The Pfizer/Seagen transaction is expected to close in late 2023 or early 2024, pending approval by Seagen shareholders and regulatory authorities.
The debt offering comes on the heels of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) latest challenge toa pharmaceutical merger. This week, the FTC sued to block Amgen’s AMGN $27.8 billion proposed acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics HZNP.
Last December, Amgen announced that it will acquire Horizon Therapeutics for $116.50 per share in cash or $27.8 billion. The acquisition will help Amgen add a complementary portfolio of rare disease drugs like Tepezza, Krystexxa and Uplizna to its broad and diversified portfolio. The proposed acquisition was the largest M&A deal announced in 2022.
The FTC believes that the acquisition would allow Amgen to coax insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to favor access to Horizon’s Tepezza, a thyroid eye disease treatment, and Krystexxa, a chronic refractory gout medicine. Both these products enjoy a monopoly-like situation in the market, facing limited competition, thus allowing Horizon to charge “extremely high prices” for these drugs. The FTC believes that if Amgen succeeds in entrenching the monopoly positions of Horizon’s drugs, it would increase revenues from Tepezza and Krystexxa and boost its top line
Zacks Rank
Pfizer currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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Pfizer Inc. (PFE) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Amgen Inc. (AMGN) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Horizon Therapeutics Public Limited Company (HZNP) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Seagen Inc. (SGEN) : Free Stock Analysis Report
