By Sabrina Valle, Milana Vinn and Amy-Jo Crowley <\/p>\n
Nov 4 (Reuters) – AstraZeneca made an offer of about $10 billion to acquire obesity drugmaker Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, according to three people \u200cfamiliar with the matter. <\/p>\n
AstraZeneca offered as much as $134 a share in the non-binding proposal, \u200cincluding payments for milestone achievements, the people said. <\/p>\n
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Wednesday that AstraZeneca had made a $124-per-share \u200boffer for the company last month. <\/p>\n
Shares of Rhythm closed up 28% at $110.68 on the news, giving it a market capitalization of about $7.64 billion. <\/p>\n
The acquisition would be pursued through AstraZeneca’s rare-disease business Alexion, which the company acquired for $39 billion in 2021 to expand beyond its core oncology and biopharmaceutical franchises, two \u200cof the people said. <\/p>\n
An AstraZeneca spokesperson \u2060declined to comment. <\/p>\n
Representatives for Rhythm did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot is seeking to shift investors’ focus back to growth \u2060after a turbulent few months. The company, which has a $292 billion market value, faced some clinical trial setbacks, and reports of a potentially transformative deal with US rival Bristol Myers Squibb had weighed on the \u200bshares. <\/p>\n
Rhythm \u200bdevelops therapies for rare neuroendocrine disorders, while Alexion specializes \u200bin treatments for rare diseases and has \u200cbecome the centerpiece of AstraZeneca’s efforts to expand in high-growth specialty medicines. <\/p>\n
AstraZeneca had previously expressed interest in Rhythm, which develops treatments for rare metabolic disorders and severe obesity, and renewed its pursuit in recent months, the Wall Street Journal reported. <\/p>\n
In March, the US Food and Drug Administration expanded the use of Rhythm’s therapy, Imcivree, for a rare form of obesity caused by brain damage, \u200cmaking it the first treatment to be approved in \u200bthe country for the condition. <\/p>\n
The company is also developing treatments \u200bfor additional rare neuroendocrine and metabolic diseases. <\/p>\n
The \u200bobesity drug market has become one of the pharmaceutical industry’s most coveted \u200csectors, driven by strong demand for treatments \u200bfrom Novo Nordisk and Eli \u200bLilly and expectations that sales could exceed $100 billion annually over the next decade. <\/p>\n
While Rhythm’s therapies target rare genetic forms of obesity rather than the broader weight-loss market, an acquisition \u200bwould give AstraZeneca an established \u200ccommercial presence in the fast-growing field while expanding its rare-disease portfolio. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Sabrina Valle \u200band Milana Vinn in New York, Amy-Jo Crowley in London and Siddhi Mahatole in \u200bBengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo and Jamie Freed) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sabrina Valle, Milana Vinn and Amy-Jo Crowley Nov 4 (Reuters) – AstraZeneca made an offer of about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20662],"tags":[12347,11153,633,1498,254,11,12348,4356,12353,12349,12350,12354,12355,5775,12356,3051,1460,12357,12351,12352,12358,12359,73,12360],"class_list":["post-159279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-astrazeneca","tag-401k","tag-astrazeneca","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-economy","tag-finance","tag-financial-information","tag-investing","tag-investment-tools","tag-investor","tag-market-news","tag-mortgage","tag-mutual-funds","tag-personal-finance","tag-quote","tag-real-estate","tag-retirement","tag-stock","tag-stock-research","tag-stock-valuation","tag-stocks","tag-suze-orman","tag-tax","tag-track-portfolio"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117560952563330295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159279","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=159279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}