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The French drugs behemothic Sanofi-Aventis is affairs the British
vaccine-maker Acambis for £276m in the latest annular of alliance in
the biotech sector.
The agreed deal, declared as a "mutually benign analytic step"
by Wayne Pisano, the arch of Sanofi's vaccine unit, sees the French
accumulation alms Acambis investors 190p a share.
The two companies are already developing vaccines calm adjoin Japanese Encephalitis, West Nile virus and Dengue fever.
Peter Fellner, Acambis's chairman, accustomed the action
yesterday. "Sanofi Pasteur, which is one of the world's better vaccines
companies, will account strategically not alone from Acambis's activity
and technologies but aswell from its cogent US-based R&D and
accomplishment infrastructure," he said.
The UK close won a 10-year contract, account $425m (£213m), to
accumulation the US government with smallpox vaccine beforehand this
year. It is aswell alive on vaccines adjoin the hospital superbug C.
difficile, flu and animal herpes.
Acambis banal rose 1p to 116p in London bygone afore the agreed
action was unveiled. Goldman Sachs and Invesco, which calm own added
than 40 per cent of Acambis's shares, acquire already agreed to acquire
the offer.
Large biologic firms acquire been scrambling to buy biotechs
afresh in an attack to defended biologic pipelines. The action comes
hot on the heels of a almanac $44bn bid by the Swiss drugs accumulation
Roche to buy out the US biotech Genentech.
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