Will J&J come up with a big enough trea­sure trove to win an Acte­lion buy­out?

J&J and Acte­lion have made it of­fi­cial. The phar­ma gi­ant is in­volved in talks to ac­quire the Swiss biotech, which had a mar­ket cap of $16.4 bil­lion, be­fore word of the buy­out talks first sur­faced in Bloomberg.

“There can be no as­sur­ance any trans­ac­tion will re­sult from these dis­cus­sions,” notes J&J $JNJ , which could eas­i­ly re­quire up to a 50% pre­mi­um to com­plete a deal like this. Acte­lion’s mar­ket cap, mean­while, surged to about $20 bil­lion as in­vestors bet that a deal would come through.

Endpoints News

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

Venture & Research Associate

Alexandria Real Estate Equities

San Francisco, CA, USA