{"id":96947,"date":"2026-08-04T08:14:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T08:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/96947\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T08:14:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T08:14:58","slug":"astrazeneca-and-bristol-myers-squibb-reported-to-have-held-talks-over-300billion-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/96947\/","title":{"rendered":"AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb reported to have held talks over \u00a3300billion merger"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AstraZeneca is reported to have held talks with US rival Bristol Myers Squibb over a merger that would create a drugs giant worth more than \u00a3300billion.<\/p>\n

The Financial Times says the Cambridge-headquartered pharmaceutical company has discussed the opportunity with New York-listed Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) in recent months.<\/p>\n

\"Pascal\"PascalPascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca. Picture: AstraZeneca<\/p>\n

If it proceeded, the move would be one of the industry\u2019s largest ever deals and create the world\u2019s fourth largest pharmaceutical company. Reports indicated that a deal could develop further in the near future but \u201cmay be delayed or fall apart\u201d, according to sources.<\/p>\n

AstraZeneca declined to comment. BMS has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

AstraZeneca, which built its \u00a31billion flagship R&D site The Discovery Centre<\/a> (DISC) at Cambridge Biomedical Campus, is the UK\u2019s second most valuable company, with a market value of around \u00a3196billion.<\/p>\n

Shares in the company fell by 6.1 per cent to 11,860p early on Monday.<\/p>\n

BMS focuses on cardiovascular and oncology treatments and is currently worth around \u00a3133billion.<\/p>\n

Any deal would be likely to face significant regulatory hurdles, amid significant scrutiny over the sector from competition and antitrust watchdogs.<\/p>\n

A merger is likely to be assessed by antitrust authorities, who have sought to increase domestic investment under President Donald Trump\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

\"The\"TheThe Discovery Centre (DISC) is AstraZeneca\u2019s flagship R&D site at Cambridge Biomedical Campus.<\/p>\n

The reports come amid efforts from AstraZeneca<\/a> to grow its foothold in the US under boss Sir Pascal Soriot.<\/p>\n

The FTSE 100 firm completed a new additional listing on the New York Stock Exchange in June as a result, in a blow to the London markets.<\/p>\n

Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: \u201cCompanies saying one thing and doing another is a well-trodden path, and AstraZeneca joins in with the reports of a proposed alliance with Bristol Myers Squibb, having only said recently that it didn\u2019t need M&A (mergers and acquisitions) to hit its targets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough a rare example of a big UK firm buying a smaller US firm is something to warm the cockles of the British heart, it risks the departure of yet another national champion, and in any case the pair\u2019s large cancer divisions is a major hurdle to a successful deal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AstraZeneca is reported to have held talks with US rival Bristol Myers Squibb over a merger that would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20662],"tags":[11153,633,1794,96],"class_list":["post-96947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-astrazeneca","tag-astrazeneca","tag-business","tag-cambridge","tag-health"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117036248142621077","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96947","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=96947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}