Can Sanofi push a CVR on Acte­lion af­ter the Lem­tra­da fi­as­co?

The buzz this morn­ing is that Sanofi $SNY is mov­ing ahead steadi­ly on work­ing out a deal to buy Acte­lion. And Bloomberg re­ports that the phar­ma gi­ant has brought out its fa­vorite M&A tool — the CVR, or con­tin­gent val­ue right shares — to get the job done with­out hand­ing over too large a pre­mi­um.

Sanofi ob­servers will well re­mem­ber that the CVR is what clinched the $20 bil­lion deal for Gen­zyme. But those CVRs are now trad­ing at 38 cents af­ter Sanofi, not known for a very ef­fec­tive in-house R&D group, failed to hit any of the big mile­stones it laid out for in­vestors. Orig­i­nal­ly val­ued at $5.58, or $3.8 bil­lion, the CVR {GCVRZ} was built around Lem­tra­da, which was ini­tial­ly re­ject­ed by the FDA, de­rail­ing the com­mer­cial­iza­tion time­line. And that re­jec­tion was fol­lowed up with a law­suit.

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