Kick­ing the habit, Philip Mor­ris forges $1.5B deal to ac­quire Vec­tura in race to build a top in­haled-drug com­pa­ny

Philip Mor­ris is switch­ing fo­cus from smok­ing to health in a big way. And to­day it’s trum­pet­ing a move in­to in­haled ther­a­peu­tics with a $1.5 bil­lion deal — which in­cludes a re­cent div­i­dend pay­out — to ac­quire Vec­tura, along with the ser­vices of some 200 sci­en­tists work­ing on build­ing their new pipeline.

In­vestors are get­ting 150 pence a share.

The move comes af­ter the UK-based Vec­tura moved past clin­i­cal set­backs and re­or­ga­nized in­to a CD­MO, nab­bing top in­dus­try clients like No­var­tis to make their in­haled drugs.

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