Saturday, May 02, 2015
AbbVie Inc. on Friday said it is again extending its exchange offer to buy cancer biotech Pharmacyclics Inc. in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $21 billion.
The pharmaceutical giant, which last year called off a deal to buy Dublin’s Shire PLC after new U.S. tax rules made it harder for American companies to lower taxes through deal-making abroad, refiled its application with the Federal Trade Commission following its first extension on April 17.
The first extended offer would have expired at 5 p.m. EDT Friday. Under the new extension, the offer is set to expire on May 15 at 5 p.m.
The deal would give AbbVie a presence in the multibillion-dollar blood-cancer market and lessen its reliance on Humira, a rheumatoid-arthritis therapy that in 2014 accounted for $12.5 billion in sales, or more than 60% of the company’s total.
wsj.com
