Genzyme chief hints at contingency valuation to break Sanofi-Aventis deal impasse
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
The stalled, sometimes frosty acquisition bid of the US biotech company Genzyme by France’s Sanofi-Aventis showed signs of thawing today when reading between the lines of an interview of Genzyme’s chief executive officer Henri Termeer in the French daily Le Figaro. During the interview, Mr Termeer discussed so-called poison-pill options available to the Genzyme Board, but also mentioned that the deal could be linked to the success of the performance of Campath, a monoclonal antibody, currently approved for a small indication, a type of B-cell leukaemia, but in late stage clinical development for multiple sclerosis, a much larger market.