Sanofi, the 11th largest pharmaceutical company in the world by stock market valuation, made an unsolicited all-cash $9.3 billion takeover offer for US drug firm Medivation/AFP-File
PARIS, France, Apr 29 – France’s biggest pharmaceutical group, Sanofi, said Friday it is confident it can convince shareholders in US rival Medivation, which makes a blockbuster prostate cancer drug, to accept its $9.3 billion (8.2-billion-euro) all-cash takeover bid.
Sanofi revealed its bid on Thursday after being frustrated by a lack of response from the American drugs maker two weeks after submitting an unsolicited offer of $52.50 a share in writing.
“We are confident that Medivation shareholders will ultimately share our strong belief that our offer at $52.50 will provide significant and immediate cash value,” Sanofi chief executive Olivier Brandicourt said on a conference call.
“We believe that it’s in everyone’s best interest to proceed on a friendly basis,” he told investors after Sanofi reported a 6.3-percent rise in net profits to 1.09 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in the first quarter of the year despite sales slipping 3.3 percent to 7.78 billion euros.
“We hope Medivation’s board will take this opportunity and we will be able to constructively engage.”
Medivation, which notably makes the pricey prostate cancer drug Xtandi, confirmed Thursday that it had received Sanofi’s April 15 offer.
The US group said it planned to discuss the non-binding bid from Sanofi in a board meeting the same day, the results of which have yet to be made public.
If the offer is accepted, it would be Sanofi’s biggest acquisition since it bought the US biotech group Genzyme in 2011 for more than $20 billion.
