By Erin McCarthy
Merck & Co. agreed to buy Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc. in a
bid to expand its portfolio of hepatitis C treatments.
The pharmaceutical company said it would acquire Idenix for
$24.50 per share in cash, more than three times Idenix's closing
price Friday.
The move comes just weeks after Merck agreed to sell its
consumer-product business, which includes over-the-counter products
like Claritin allergy medicines and Coppertone sunscreens, to Bayer
AG for $14.2 billion.
The global pharmaceutical industry has seen a wave of mergers
and acquisitions lately as drug companies seek to focus more on
areas where they have more expertise and scale.
Idenix is a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on developing
treatments for human viral diseases, including hepatitis C. The
company currently has three hepatitis C drug candidates in clinical
development, the companies said. It has no products on the
market.
"Idenix's investigational hepatitis C candidates complement our
promising therapies in development" and will help to develop a
highly effective, once-daily, all-oral treatment, said Dr. Roger
Perlmutter, president of Merck Research Laboratories.
Merck has several hepatitis C medicines in development,
including one that has received breakthrough therapy designation
from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the company said.
Hepatitis C therapies have become a hot area as a new generation
of products promise to cure more patients in shorter treatment
times and with fewer side effects than older therapies.
A drug from Gilead Sciences Inc., called Sovaldi, is the first
of this new generation and reported nearly $2.3 billion in
first-quarter sales in what is believed to be the best-selling
prescription drug launch in history. The drug has drawn criticism
for its high price tag of $1,000 per pill, or $84,000 per patient
for a standard 12-week treatment.
Spending on specialty drugs, including treatments for hepatitis
C, are expected to surge in the next two years, according to an
April report from Express Scripts. It had forecast the U.S. will
spend 1,800% more on hepatitis C medications in 2016 than it did in
2013.
The Merck-Idenix deal, which has been approved by both
companies' boards, is expected to close in the third quarter.
Write to Erin McCarthy at erin.mccarthy@wsj.com
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