Aug 2 (Reuters) – UK drugmaker AstraZeneca has been exploring a deal to combine with U.S. rival Bristol Myers Squibb, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n
The \u200cdeal could create one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies with a combined value of nearly $400 \u200cbillion. <\/p>\n
The companies have held talks on a potential tie-up in recent months, the report said, adding that a deal could materialize soon, but \u200bcould also be delayed or fall apart. <\/p>\n
Reuters could not immediately verify the report. AstraZeneca declined to comment, while Bristol Myers did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. <\/p>\n
Last year, AstraZeneca unveiled plans for a direct U.S. listing, aiming to capitalize on stronger valuations in the U.S. market while remaining listed in London. <\/p>\n
STRONG GROWTH IN CANCER DRUGS <\/p>\n
AstraZeneca’s \u200cshare price has more than quadrupled \u2060during Pascal Soriot’s 14-year tenure as CEO, soaring above the wider FTSE 100 index and main British rival GSK. <\/p>\n
Second-quarter results last week showed strong demand for cancer and rare \u2060disease drugs continues to drive growth. Cancer treatments accounted for about $25 billion in 2025 sales, nearly half of the total, followed by cardiovascular, renal and metabolism treatments worth about $12 billion. <\/p>\n
Combining with Bristol Myers, whose shares are up around 44% over \u200bthe \u200blast year, could draw attention from antitrust regulators. Oncology drugs \u200baccounted for over 40% of its overall \u200csales in the first six months of 2026, and the two companies’ cancer immunotherapies directly compete. <\/p>\n
Bristol Myers has been doing smaller deals to gain new drugs as it faces declining sales of older medicines, some of which will soon face generic competition. <\/p>\n
In 2019, Bristol Myers bought Celgene for about $80 billion, acquiring its flagship blood cancer drug Revlimid, which became Bristol’s top-selling product. Revlimid has already lost patent protection and its current top sellers \u2014 cancer \u200cimmunotherapy Opdivo and blood thinner Eliquis \u2014 could lose patent protection by \u200b2028. <\/p>\n
Still, Bristol raised its full-year revenue and profit forecast last week \u200bas strong sales of Eliquis and newer medicines \u200bpushed second-quarter results well past analysts’ estimates. <\/p>\n
Its promising newer drugs and pipeline assets include \u200can experimental blood thinner milvexian, anemia treatment Reblozyl \u200band heart drug Camzyos. <\/p>\n
The report \u200bof the potential deal comes about a dozen years after AstraZeneca fended off a takeover attempt by larger U.S. rival Pfizer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aug 2 (Reuters) – UK drugmaker AstraZeneca has been exploring a deal to combine with U.S. rival Bristol…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20662],"tags":[11153,3348,40798,35516],"class_list":["post-95953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-astrazeneca","tag-astrazeneca","tag-bristol","tag-bristol-myers-squibb","tag-pharmaceutical-companies"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117028466691821966","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95953","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=95953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}