As usual, it was another busy Monday of mergers and acquisitions. Let’s recap the biggest deals. 📝
First, Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk’s parent company is buying drug manufacturer Catelent for $16.5 billion to help boost the supply of popular weight loss injection Wegovy and diabetes shot Ozempic. Novo Nordisk will then buy three of Catalent’s manufacturing sites from its parent company for $11 billion, giving it further access to the fill-finish part of its Wegovy product. 🏭
Drug maker Novartis AG is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire MophoSys AG, a developer of cancer treatments currently worth about $1.7 billion. Novartis’ bid has topped rival drug maker Incyte Corp, but there’s no certainty that deal negotiations will end up in its favor. The target company develops drugs to fight deadly forms of cancers such as myelofibrosis, making it a highly sought-after asset. Its shares rose nearly 60% on the news. 🏭
Yandex NV has reached a $5.21 billion deal to sell what has been dubbed “Russia’s Google” to a group of Russian investors, making it the most significant corporate exit from the country since Moscow invaded Ukraine two years ago. It cements Yandex’s departure from Western tech circles and puts it directly under Russian ownership. Once seen as one of the few Russian companies with the potential to become a global business, fear of a technology brain drain ultimately kept that from becoming reality. 🌏
Lastly, U.S. private equity firm Thoma Bravo is taking software firm Everbridge for $1.5 billion, representing a 20% premium to its last closing price. The company helps businesses and governments anticipate, mitigate, respond to, and recover from critical events. It’ll become privately held after the deal closes in the second quarter. ⚠️