J&J’s $15 bln depression deal eases pharma blues

Intra-Cellular Therapies

13/01/2025 18:22

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist.  The opinions
expressed are his own.)
    By Robert Cyran
       NEW YORK, Jan 13 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The $344 bln
healthcare firm has spent years dealing with lawsuits and
pruning assets. Meanwhile, novel drug developers’ stocks have
been stuck in purgatory for a decade, making them look cheap.
For giants like Johnson & Johnson in need of new products an M&A
solution is obvious.
    
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    CONTEXT NEWS
    Johnson & Johnson said on Jan. 13 it had agreed to buy
Intra-Cellular Therapies for $132 a share, or approximately
$14.6 billion, in cash. That is a 39% premium compared to
closing stock prices on Jan. 10, the last day of trading before
the announcement.
    Intra-Cellular’s drug Caplyta, which has been approved to
treat depressive disorder associated with bipolar disease and
schizophrenia, had $481 million of sales in the first nine
months of 2024. The company said in its third-quarter conference
call that the drug represents at least a $5 billion annual
opportunity within ten years.

 (Editing by Jonathan Guilford and Pranav Kiran)
 ((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can
click on  CYRAN/ 
robert.cyran@thomsonreuters.com))