Merck To Acquire Idenix Pharma For $3.85 Bln

(RTTNews) - Healthcare giant Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK), which recently agreed to sell its Consumer Care business to being the premier research-intensive biopharmaceutical company, Monday announced its agreement to acquire Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (IDIX) for $24.50 per share in cash, with approximately $3.85 billion in total.

In pre-market activity, Merck stock is losing $0.35 or 0.61 percent, and trading at $57.50. Meanwhile, Idenix is gaining $16.96 or 234.58 percent, and trading at $24.19.

The acquisition of Idenix, which develops drugs for human viral diseases, expands Merck's portfolio of promising investigational therapies for hepatitis c.

The companies have entered into a definitive agreement, and the deal has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

Under the deal terms, Merck, through a unit, will initiate a tender offer to buy the shares of Idenix. The closing of the tender offer will be subject to certain conditions, following which Merck will acquire all remaining shares through a second-step merger.

The companies expect the transaction to close in the third quarter of 2014.

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Idenix Pharma is a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of drugs for the treatment of human viral diseases. Idenix's current focus is on the development of next-generation oral antiviral therapeutics to treat hepatitis C virus or HCV infection.

Idenix currently has three HCV drug candidates in clinical development, including two nucleotide prodrugs (IDX21437 and IDX21459) and a NS5A inhibitor (samatasvir). These candidates are being evaluated for their potential inclusion in the development of all oral, pan-genotypic fixed-dose combination regimens, Merck said.

Meanwhile, Merck's research and development portfolio includes several HCV medicines in development, the leading of which is a combination of MK-5172, an investigational HCV NS3/4A protease inhibitor and MK-8742, an investigational HCV NS5A replication complex inhibitor.

The company noted that the combination has received Breakthrough Therapy designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of HCV.

Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, in April announced the initiation of Phase 3 clinical trials for MK-5172/MK-8742 to evaluate the combination with and without ribavirin in various genotypes and across a broad range of patient populations with chronic HCV.

Roger Perlmutter, president, Merck Research Laboratories, said, "Idenix has established a promising portfolio of hepatitis C candidates based on its expertise in nucleoside/nucleotide chemistry and prodrug technologies. Idenix's investigational hepatitis C candidates complement our promising therapies in development and will help advance our work to develop a highly effective, once-daily, all oral, ribavirin-free, pan-genotypic regimen that has a duration of treatment as short as possible for millions of patients in need around the world."

According to Idenix's President and Chief Executive Officer Ron Renaud, the deal creates shareholder value by positioning Idenix's strong portfolio of candidates for future success.

In the transaction, Credit Suisse acted as financial advisor to Merck and Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP as its legal advisor. For Idenix, Centerview Partners acted as financial advisor and Sullivan & Cromwell as its legal advisor.

As it aims to being the premier research-intensive biopharmaceutical company, Merck in early May agreed to sell its Consumer Care business to German conglomerate Bayer AG (BYR.L, BAYRY.PK, BAYZF.PK) for $14.2 billion or 10.4 billion euros.