AstraZeneca sells off more assets from its island of misfit drugs in $1.6B Pfizer deal
AstraZeneca has completed another stage in its systematic retreat from the antibiotics business, selling a portfolio of marketed and experimental small molecule antibiotics to an acquisitive Pfizer for $725 million in cash and another $850 million in milestones.
The first stage in the retreat started in 2014, as it began to wind down its early-stage antibiotics research group in Waltham, MA, which had 175 staffers when Pascal Soriot took over as CEO at the pharma giant. Industry sources at the time tipped me off to the company’s decision to see if it could find a buyer for the group. But when no deal emerged, AstraZeneca decided to spin out a small group of survivors in a new venture dubbed Entasis, with a $40 million round to get it set up.
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