{"id":102791,"date":"2026-08-13T13:57:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/102791\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T13:57:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:57:20","slug":"no-discussions-ongoing-for-astrazeneca-bms-merger-reuters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/102791\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018No discussions\u2019 ongoing for AstraZeneca-BMS merger: Reuters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb do not have any ongoing discussions about a potential deal, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/no-discussions-over-astrazeneca-bristol-myers-deal-senior-source-says-2026-08-05\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters reported<\/a> Wednesday, citing a senior source close to the matter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is \u2060no deal between AstraZeneca and BMS. There \u200bnever was a deal to be done, and \u200bthere are no discussions between the companies,\u201d the person said, as quoted by Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>The development comes after the Financial Times reported Sunday that AZ was in talks to combine with BMS. A merger would create a new pharmaceutical giant valued at nearly $400 billion.<\/p>\n<p>News of the unconfirmed deal talks drew major investor pushback on AZ\u2019s side, with the British drugmaker\u2019s stock sliding nearly 9% following the Financial Times report. The company\u2019s London-listed shares rebounded about 3% Wednesday after Reuters reported that no discussions were underway.<\/p>\n<p>By comparison, BMS\u2019 shares dropped about 3% Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>Between the two businesses, AZ has projected revenue to grow from $55.6 billion in 2025 to $80 billion in 2030, although its sales trajectory beyond that time point is less clear. BMS faces a tougher outlook as its two top-selling drugs, Eliquis and Opdivo, are losing patent protection soon. Together, revenues from the two meds made up nearly 54% of BMS\u2019 total in the second quarter.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts had expressed skepticism about the rumored deal. A combination of AZ and BMS would likely face intense antitrust scrutiny and disrupt R&amp;D timelines during integration.<\/p>\n<p>Besides, the move shook investors\u2019 confidence in AZ\u2019s much-touted $80 billion revenue goal, raising doubts about whether management was putting on a bold front while secretly panicking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course financial accretion can look good and maybe more cash generation would allow for more R&amp;D. But if there is one company that doesn\u2019t need financial engineering, it\u2019s AZ in our view,\u201d Jefferies\u2019 analysts wrote in an Aug. 3 note.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow much overlap is on the combined portfolio? Also, many programs will be \u2018deprioritized\u2019. Finally, the inevitable disruption of R&amp;D and loss of key personnel will slow things down,\u201d John LaMattina, a senior partner at PureTech Health, who was formerly president of Pfizer global R&amp;D, wrote about the prospect of an AZ-BMS combination in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/feed\/update\/urn:li:activity:7490749275157504000\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">LinkedIn post<\/a> Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In a previous post, LaMattina suggested that a merger would put the two firms\u2019 R&amp;D organizations in \u201cturmoil for at least 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb do not have any ongoing discussions about a potential deal, Reuters reported Wednesday,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20662],"tags":[11153,40798,22786,29324,15641,12937,10253],"class_list":["post-102791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-astrazeneca","tag-astrazeneca","tag-bristol-myers-squibb","tag-deals","tag-fierce-pharma-homepage","tag-ma","tag-mergers-and-acquisitions","tag-pharma"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117088553839612415","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}