Deals and M&As this week: Alliance Pharma, Bayer, Onxeo

Alliance Pharma plans to acquire exclusive distribution rights to Nizoral, an anti-dandruff brand, from Janssen Pharmaceutica NV for £60m ($79.5m).

Alliance Pharma has also raised £34m ($45m) through a private placement of 37 million shares priced at £0.91 ($1.2) a share.

The asset transaction will be funded by an underwritten equity placement of new ordinary shares to raise £34m ($45m).

The deal will enable Alliance Pharma to strengthen its Asia-Pacific distribution business.

Based in the UK, Alliance Pharma is a pharmaceutical company that provides healthcare products, while Janssen is also a pharmaceutical company based in Belgium.

Bayer plans to raise $2bn through the private placement of 4.875% bonds due 2048.

The company is executing the transaction through its subsidiary Bayer US Finance II.

Bayer is simultaneously planning for the private placement of seven tranche of bonds, including 3.5% bonds due 2021, floating rate bonds due 2021, 3.875% bonds due 2023, floating rate bonds due 2023, 4.25% bonds due 2025, 4.375% bonds due 2028, and 4.625% bonds due 2038 to raise $1.25bn, $1.25bn, $2.25bn, $1.25bn, $2.5bn, $3.5bn and $1bn respectively.

HSBC Holdings, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and The Goldman Sachs Group were appointed as underwriters to the company for the offering.

Based in Germany, Bayer is a chemical, life sciences and pharmaceutical company.

The company plans to use the funds to pay part of the syndicated credit facility for the acquisition of Monsanto, an agricultural biotechnology company.

Onxeo plans to raise equity financing from Nice & Green through the issuance of new shares within the limit of 4.7 million for a ten-month period representing a sum of €5.4m ($6.32m).

Based in France, Onxeo is a biotechnology company that specialises in the production of drugs in the field of oncology.

"Lupin has signed an agreement with Nichi Iko for the production and marketing of its Etanercept (YLB113) biosimilar drug in Japan."

The funding will be used towards ongoing clinical trial development programmes and for the development of its future drug candidates.

Lupin has signed an agreement with Nichi Iko for the production and marketing of its Etanercept (YLB113) biosimilar drug in Japan.

The drug was developed by YL Biologics, through a joint venture (JV) between Lupin’s subsidiary Lupin Atlantis Holdings SA (LAHSA) and Yoshindo.

Lupin’s Japanese subsidiary Kyowa had submitted a new drug application for marketing authorisation to the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA) in March following the completion of the Phase III study.

Based in India, Lupin is a transnational pharmaceutical company, while Nichi-Iko is a Japan-based pharmaceutical company that is focused on the production, distribution and import of various pharmaceuticals.

Roche has signed a merger agreement with Foundation Medicine, Inc (FMI) through the purchase of the outstanding shares of the latter’s common stock at a price of $137 a share.

Roche will acquire all the shares of FMI that were not already owned by it or its subsidiaries.

The total value of the deal is estimated at $2.4bn, while the combined value of the new company is estimated at $5.3bn on a diluted basis.

The transaction is expected to be closed in the second half of 2018.

Davis Polk & Wardwell was appointed as legal adviser to Roche, while Goldman Sachs & Co. was appointed as financial adviser to FMI for the transaction.

Based in Switzerland, Roche is a biotechnology and healthcare company, while FMI is a US-based company that produces and markets genomic analysis diagnostics for solid tumour cancers.

France-based pharmaceutical and human healthcare company Sanofi has completed the acquisition of Ablynx for $3.9bn.

The target company is a Belgium-based biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of nanobodies.

Sanofi will continue to conduct Ablynx’s ongoing drug development programmes for a range of therapeutic areas, including haematology, immuno-oncology and respiratory diseases, following the acquisition.

The transaction will strengthen the acquirer company’s research and development programmes and enable it to develop novel technologies targeting serious diseases.