AstraZeneca Plc (LON:AZN) the FTSE 100 drugs giant is currently preparing an offer for coveted American cancer specialist Medivation. DirectorsTalk caught up with Pascal Hughes the CEO of Levrett Plc (LON:LVRT) for his comments on the Times article.
CEO Pascal Hughes said: “This Excellent piece by the Sunday Times’ Lifescience reporter Peter Evans on the interest from a big-pharma, including FTSE 100 Astra Zeneca, in US based biotech company Medivation, to strengthen their oncology offering. This demonstrates once again that it is strategic imperative and not market sentiment that drives most M&A in the healthcare and biotech sector, the significant challenges big-pharma face in developing in-house new therapies and treatments at a pace and on a scale that will satisfy the equity markets, which is why so much innovation is happening at smaller biotech co’s. Despite the biotech indices being off the highs of 2015, expect to see high levels of dealmaking again in 2016 in the sector and the valuation uplift for those companies that can develop science representing significant step changes in existing treatments, or indeed new treatments, remain very high.”
Levrett plc is a special purpose acquisition company formed to acquire realisable and/or developed commercial technologies focused in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology sector. The Company draws on its expertise in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology sector to assess different propositions and initiate discussions via market contacts and professional advisers. In selecting acquisition opportunities to review, the Board will focus on entities that are available at attractive valuations and hold opportunities to unlock embedded value. Once an acquisition target has been identified the Company will carry out a comprehensive and thorough project review process in which all material aspects of a potential project or business will be subject to rigorous due diligence, as appropriate.
