Takeda makes $8.8B bid for Millennium

Looking to expand out of a budget-bound Japanese market, Takeda is taking a big chunk of its $10 billion war chest and offering $8.8 billion in cash for U.S.-based Millennium Pharmaceuticals [1]. The $25 per share offer is a 65 percent premium over Wednesday's close. Millennium is best known for the cancer drug Velcade, which Takeda is looking to turn into a global blockbuster [2]. That would go a long way toward overcoming the looming patent expirations for Actos and Prevacid. 

Recently Takeda and Abbott split [3] up their long-time drug development partnership. That move boosted Takeda to the 14th largest drug company in the world, but investors have been fretting over the absence of a big takeover. Millennium has more than a half billion dollars in revenue last year and also has a number of inflammation and cancer therapies in the pipeline, which would also address Takeda's interest in oncology.

"Millennium greatly strengthens Takeda's global oncology portfolio, led by the flagship product Velcade, and further enhances its pipeline with clinically differentiated, high-quality product candidates," said Yasuchika Hasegawa, President of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited.

- here's the release [4]
- see this article [5] from Forbes

Millinneum News:
Millennium [1] chief scientist takes offbeat approach
Millennium spent $1.3M on lobbying [6]
Positive Velcade [7] data fuels stock rise
Analysts tag Velcade as blockbuster [2]

Takeda News:
Amgen [8], Takeda [9] ink massive development deals
Takeda expands R&D budget [10], may look for buyout.
Safety, efficacy problems sink Takeda drug [11]
Cell Genesys [12] scores $320M blockbuster deal with Takeda