Shire to Buy NPS Pharmaceuticals for $5.2 Billion
All-Cash Transaction Would Mark Return of Irish Drug Maker to Deal-Making
Shire PLC said it has agreed to buy NPS Pharmaceuticals Inc. for $5.2 billion in a takeover that would mark the Irish drug maker’s return to deal-making.
The all-cash deal would hasten Shire’s pivot to drugs for rare conditions and bolster its portfolio of therapies for gastrointestinal disorders like the ones treated by NPS’s two drugs, Shire Chief Executive Flemming Ornskov said. “It is another step in the direction of becoming a biotech,” he said in an interview.
The deal would be accretive in 2016 and is expected to close in the first quarter of this year, Dr. Ornskov said. He said combining NPS’s two drugs with Shire’s existing sales force could eventually yield blockbuster sales for each of the NPS therapies.
The agreement is Shire’s first major deal after AbbVie Inc ’s attempts to acquire Shire fell apart last October. Dublin-based Shire received a breakup fee of $1.6 billion after AbbVie walked away from the so-called tax-inversion deal. AbbVie scrapped the acquisition after the Obama Administration took steps to deter such tax-lowering deals.